Inferential Statistics

Statistical Inference

Recall again the Big Picture, the four-step process that encompasses statistics: data production, exploratory data analysis, probability, and inference.

We are about to start the fourth part of the process and the final section of this course, where we draw on principles learned in the other units (exploratory data analysis, producing data, and probability) in order to accomplish what has been our ultimate goal all along: use a sample to infer (or draw conclusions) about the population from which it was drawn. As you’ll see in the introduction, the specific form of inference called for depends on the type of variables involved: either a single categorical or quantitative variable or a combination of two variables whose relationship is of interest.

The Big Picture of Statistics. First, a set of data was created from subset of the population. This is the Producing Data step. Then, we perform exploratory data analysis on the data. With these results, we apply probability which is our first step in drawing conclusions about the population from the data. After we have applied probability to the data, we can draw conclusions. This is called inference, the second step in drawing conclusions. In this unit we will be looking at the Inference step.

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Intro to Statistics MAT1260 by SBCCOE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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