Sixty Minutes Statistics
Supplementary Materials for LSI 580 Evaluation and Research
Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven CT

LSI 580-70
Fall 1999

CONTENTS:
Common terms
Ways of summarizing data
Measures of Central Tendency
Measures of Dispersion
Sampling techniques
Exploratory Data Analysis
Inferential Statistics
Multivariate Analysis

The Sixty Minute Statistics Course

Statistics is a set of methods for arranging data* (or pieces of information) and drawing conclusions about them. Statistics is a language--with special symbols and special jargon.

*observations collected in order to describe or measure a situation or problem of interest

Statistics serves two functions: 1) descriptive and 2) interpretative (or inferential).

Descriptive statistics

are used to summarize a body of raw data. A descriptive statistic could be a number that describes the situation of interest. The value [number] of the descriptive statistic is an efficient summary of that data.

Interpretative or inferential statistics

are more powerful but there is a certain amount of risk about them. Inferential statistics are used to accept or reject a hypothesis about a body of collected data.

Principles of analysis & interpretation: it is difficult or impossible to explain raw data; we must first analyze the data and then interpret the results of the analysis. We analysis by categorizing, ordering, manipulating, and summarizing data to obtain answers to research questions. We interpret data by making inferences from the results of the analysis, pertinent to the research relations studies , and drawing conclusion about these relations.

This self-study module is divided into 8 parts: Common terms; Ways of summarizing data; Measures of Central Tendency; Measures of Dispersion; Sampling techniques; Exploratory Data Analysis; Inferential Statistics; Multivariate Analysis. Access to each part is through the menu on the left of the screen.