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## FYBCOM (NEP) SEM I ### BASIC STATISTICS FOR COMMERCE ### UNIT I DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS **Introduction:** - The views commonly held about statistics are numerous, but often incomplete. It has different meanings to different people depending largely on its use. For example, (i) for a cricket fan...

## FYBCOM (NEP) SEM I ### BASIC STATISTICS FOR COMMERCE ### UNIT I DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS **Introduction:** - The views commonly held about statistics are numerous, but often incomplete. It has different meanings to different people depending largely on its use. For example, (i) for a cricket fan, statistics refers to numerical information or data relating to the runs scored by a cricketer; (ii) for an environmentalist, statistics refers to information on the quantity of pollution released into the atmosphere by all types of vehicles in different cities; (iii) for the census department, statistics consists of information about the birth rate per thousand and the sex ratio in different states; (iv) for a share broker, statistics is the information on changes in share prices over a period of time; and so on. **Croxton and Cowden** gave definition of statistics. They have defined statistics in singular sense. This definition also refers statistics as Statistical Method. According to Croxton and Cowden Statistics was define as a science of collection, presentation, analysis and interpretation of numerical data. This definition has pointed out four stages of statistical investigation, to which one more stage 'organization of data' rightly deserves to be added. Accordingly, statistics was defined as the science of collecting, organizing, presenting, analyzing, and interpreting numerical data for making better decisions. ### Statistical methods, broadly, fall into the following two categories: - **Descriptive statistics** - **Inferential statistics** ### Descriptive statistics includes statistical methods involving the collection, presentation, and characterization of a set of data in order to describe the various features of that set of data. ### Inferential statistics includes statistical methods which facilitate estimating the characteristic of a population or making decisions concerning a population on the basis of sample results. ### Types of data: - The collected data are of two types (i) Qualitative data (ii) Quantitative data ### Qualitative Data: - When the data are classified according to some qualitative phenomena, which are not capable of quantitative measurement like honesty, beauty, employment, intelligence, occupation, sex, literacy, etc., are termed as qualitative data. The qualitative phenomena under study are known as Attributes. For example, - (i) Population has two classes like, presence and absence, male and female, honest or dishonest, employed or unemployed, beautiful or not beautiful is called dichotomous attribute. ### Quantitative data: - If the data are classified on the basis of weight, prices, production, income, expenditure, etc., the phenomenon under study is known as Quantitative data. - Variables are of two kinds: (i) Continuous variables (ii) Discrete variables - (i) Those variables, which can take all possible values between any two given limits, are termed as continuous variables. - For example, the age of students, height of a person etc., can take all possible values (as years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc.), in a certain range. - More precisely a variable is said to be continuous if it can vary by infinitely small gradations. - (ii) On the other hand, those variables which can take only a finite number of values are termed as discrete (discontinuous) variables. - For example, family size (number of members in a family), number of typing mistakes possible, number of accidents etc., are discrete variables.