statistics summary

Learn about statistics and its application

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A pie chart for the marital status of 100 individuals.

statistics, Branch of mathematics dealing with gathering, analyzing, and making inferences from data. Originally associated with government data (e.g., census data), the subject now has applications in all the sciences. Statistical tools not only summarize past data through such indicators as the mean (see mean, median, and mode) and the standard deviation but can predict future events using frequency distribution functions. Statistics provides ways to design efficient experiments that eliminate time-consuming trial and error. Double-blind tests for polls, intelligence and aptitude tests, and medical, biological, and industrial experiments all benefit from statistical methods and theories. The results of all of them serve as predictors of future performance, though reliability varies. See also estimation; hypothesis testing; least squares method; probability theory; regression.

measure of association Summary

Measure of association, in statistics, any of various factors or coefficients used to quantify a relationship between two or more variables. Measures of association are used in various fields of research but are especially common in the areas of epidemiology and psychology, where they frequently

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher Summary

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a British statistician and geneticist who pioneered the application of statistical procedures to the design of scientific experiments. In 1909 Fisher was awarded a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1912 with a