ELEMENTARY

STATISTICS AND
PROBABILITY

by:
Carmela O. Zamora-
Reyes
Lorelei B. Ladao-
 Module 1

Introduction
 Objectives:
At the end of this module, the students are expected to:
• Determine the nature of statistics applicable to a given
situation;
• Identify population and variable in a given situation or
problem; and,
• Classify the data according to variable type and
appropriate level of measurement.
 Definition, Natures and
Importance of Statistics

The word statistics is derived from the Latin word

status meaning “state”. Early uses of statistics
involved compilation of data and graphs describing
various aspects of the state or country. The word
statistics has two basic meanings. We sometimes use
this word when referring to actual numbers derived
from data and the other refers to statistics as a method
of analysis.
 Statistics
Statistics is a collection of data, such as
statistics of crimes, statistics on enrolment,
statistics on unemployment, and the like.
Statistics is also a science, which deals with the
collection, organization, presentation, analysis
and interpretation of data.
 Uses of Statistics
Statistics helps people answer questions and make decisions about
many things.
1. In education, statistics can be used to asses students’ performance
and correlate factors affecting teaching and learning process to
improve quality of education.
2. In Psychology, statistics is used to determine attitudinal patterns,
the causes and effects of misbehavior.
3. In business and economics, statistics is used to analyze a wide
range of data like sales, outputs, price indices, revenues, costs,
inventories, accounts, etc. This is to monitor status of customers,
employees, orders, and production.
4. In research and experimentation, statistics is used to validate or
test a claim or inferences about a group of people or object, or a
series of events.
5. In the field of medicine, statistics is used to collect
information about patients and diseases and to make
decisions about the use of new drugs or treatment.
6. Meteorologists use statistics to find patterns in the
weather and make predictions about what future
weather will be like.
7. In Demographics, the study of the size, vital
characteristics of the population, and how they might
change over time. Perhaps most familiar to us are the
statistics reported in the news media about important
issues.
 Natures of Statistics
The origin of modern statistics can be traced to two areas of
interest, which on the surface, have very little in common:
government (political science) and games of chance.
Governments have long used censuses to count persons and
property, and the problem of describing, summarizing, and
analyzing census data has led to the development of methods
which, until recently, constituted about all there was to the subject
of statistics. These methods make up what we now call descriptive
statistics. This includes anything done to the data, which is
designed to summarize or describe, without going any further; that
is, without attempting to infer anything that goes beyond the data.
Whereas statistical information based on analyses made on only
part of a large set of data utilizes methods that go beyond mere
description of the data. That is statistical inference.
 Fields of Statistics
1. Descriptive statistics – deals with the methods of
collecting, organizing, summarizing and presenting a
mass of data so as to yield meaningful information.
2. Inferential statistics – deals with making
generalizations about a body of data where only a
part of it is examined. This comprises those methods
concerned with the analysis of a subset of data
leading to predictions or inferences about the entire
set of data.
 Examples:
Determine whether the following statements use the area
of descriptive statistics or statistical inference.
1. A bowler wants to find his bowling average for the past 12
games.
Answer: descriptive statistics
2. A manager would like to predict based on previous years’
sales, the sales performance of a company for the next five
years.
Answer: inferential statistics
3. A politician would like to estimate, based on an opinion
poll, his chance for winning in the upcoming senatorial
election.
Answer: inferential statistics
4. A teacher wishes to determine the percentage of
students who passed the examination.
Answer: descriptive statistics
5. A student wishes to determine the average monthly
expenditures on school supplies for the past five
months.
Answer: descriptive statistics
6. A basketball player wants to estimate his chance of
winning the most valuable player (MVP) ward based on
his current season averages and the averages of his
opponents.
Answer: inferential statistics
 Quiz 1
Classify the following statements as belonging to
the area of descriptive statistics or statistical inference.
Write DS for descriptive statistics and write IS for
inferential statistics on the space provided.
1. Yesterday’s records show that five (5) employees
were absent due to Dengue fever. __________
2. If the present trend continuous, architects will
construct more contemporary homes than colonials in
the next 5 years. __________
3. IN a certain city, arsonists deliberately set 3% of all
fires reported last year. _________
4. At least 30% of all new homes being built today are of a
contemporary design. __________
5. As a result of a recent poll, most Filipinos are in favor of
finding work employment abroad.
6. Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grows by 4.6% in
2002, 1.4 percentage points higher than its 3.2% performance in
2001. ______
7. The average grade of 10 students in English is 89.46%. _______
8. Based from the present sales trend, it is expected that after two
years, this year’s sales will be doubled. _____
9. All four provinces of ARMM are among the 10 poorest
provinces in the Philippines for 2002. ______
10. During the period 1996 to 2002, unemployment rates among
women were consistently higher compared to men except in 1999
and 2000. _______
 Definition of Some Basic
Statistical Terms
The following are terms commonly used in statistics:
1. Population – is the set of all individuals or entities under
consideration or study. It may be a finite or infinite collection of
objects, events, or individuals, with specified class or
characteristics under consideration.
Example 1: The researcher would like to determine the average
age of patients infected with dengue fever for the month of
October at DLSU-UMC.
Population: the set of all patients with dengue fever
Example 2: The researcher would like to determine the number
of female PT students in DLSU-Dasmariñas.
Population: The set of all students in DLSU-D.
2. Variable – is a characteristic of interest measurable on each and
every individual in the universe, denoted by any capital letter in the
English alphabet, is called a variable.
Types of Variable
1. Qualitative Variable (categorical) – are non-measurable
characteristics that cannot assume a numerical value but can be
classified into two or more categories. Gender is a qualitative
dichotomous variable since an individual may take one of the two
values “male” or “female.” In an opinion poll, the response of
individuals toward an issue whether to go “for” it or “against” it or
“undecided” is an example of a qualitative trichotomous variable.
Smoking habits of an individual in different situations may be
classified as “Always/Very Often,” “Often,” ”Seldom,” ”Very
Seldom,” or “Never.” This set of qualitative values is called
multinomous variable. Those data that are obtained about a
qualitative variable is called qualitative data. Another examples are
classification, year level, sex, and subjects enrolled this semester.
 In an ordinal scale of measurement, however,
categorical variables are usually coded
numerical for a purpose of obtaining a weighted
average that would typically represent a group of
responses. For instance, student’s perception
towards an issue can be classified and coded as 5
for “Certainly Agree,” 4 for “Agree,” 3 for
“Undecide,” 2 for “Disagree,” and 1 for
“Certainly Disagree.”
2. Quantitative Variable (numerical) – are those
quantities than can be counted with your bare hands,
can be measured with the use of some measuring
devices, or can be calculated with the use of a
mathematical formula.
Variable for Population 1: A = age
Variable for Population 2: S = sex
Those data involving quantitative variables are
called quantitative data.
 Classification of Quantitative Variable
1. Discrete Variables – consist of actual values usually
obtained by counting. Hence, they are represented by
counting numbers or whole numbers.
Examples: number of students, number of books,
number of patients, and the number of trials allowed for
an experiment are examples of discrete variables.
2. Continuous Variables – are obtained by
measurements, usually with units such as height in
meters, weights in kgs, and time in minutes. Continuous
variables are also obtained by evaluating values using a
formula such as profits, I.Q., final grades, and EOQ.
Examples: height, weight, grade point average, and time.
 Definition of Some Basic
Statistical Terms
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6. Survey – is often conducted to gather opinions or feedbacks
about a variety of topics.
Census Survey – most often simply referred to as census, is
conducted by gathering information from the entire population.
Sampling Survey – most often simply referred to as survey,
is conducted by gathering information only from part of the
population.
7. Data – usually refers to facts concerning things such as
status in life of people, defectiveness of objects or effect of an
event to the society.
8. Information – is a set of data that have been processed and
presented in a form suitable for human interpretation, usually
with a purpose of revealing trends or patterns about the
population.
 Level of Measurements
Level 1. Nominal
Nominal is characterized by data that consist of
names, labels, or categories only. The data cannot be
arranged in an ordering scheme.
Examples:
1. name 3. civil status 5. sex
2. religion 4. address 6. degree program
Level 2. Ordinal
Ordinal involves data that may be arranged in some order,
but differences between data values either cannot be
determined or are meaningless.
Examples:
1. military rank 2. job position 3. year level

Level 3. Interval
Interval is like the ordinal level, with the additional
property that meaningful amounts of differences between data
can be determined. However, there is no inherent (natural) zero
starting point.
Examples:
1. IQ score2. temperature (in ˚C).
Level 4. Ratio
Ratio is the interval level modified to
include the inherent zero starting point. For
values at this level, differences and ratios are
meaningful.
Examples:
1. height 3. area
2. width 4. weekly allowance
 References:
O Elementary Statistics text/workbook, Carmela
O. Zamora-Reyes and Lorelie B. Ladao-Saren
O Elementary Statistics: A Modern Approach,
Altares, Copo, Gabuyo, Laddaran, Mejia,
Policarpio, Sy, Tizon, and Yao
 End of
Chapter 1