statistic articles

Statistics Articles

• Point Value: 25 bonus points.
• Purpose: To gain a better understanding of the definition of descriptive and inferential statistics and how these ideas can improve understanding of business and related career areas.
• Task: Find two articles from newspapers, business periodicals, or Web sites, one that uses descriptive statistics and another using inferential statistics and write about them.
• What to turn in: Briefly discuss in about one typewritten page your analysis of the articles and its use of statistics. To get credit, attach the articles to your paper and answer these questions in about one paragraph long for each the descriptive and the inferential article:
• 1) How does the article qualify as descriptive statistics or inferential statistics?
• 2) Based on the article’s information, what field(s) of industry could it be used?
• 3) What is the article’s potential use in a decision-making situation?
• Format: Typed, double spaced, 1 inch margins. Put your name and the course number at the top. If you use more than one page, staple the pages. Provide a reference for the article(s).
• DO NOT simply regurgitate the article. The article’s content speaks for itself. I am interested in reading about your assessment of the statistics being used and answering the questions.
• In addition to grading your understanding of what descriptive and inferential statistics is based on the article you’ve selected, I will grade your grammar and your ability to follow directions as well. Because you took time to research and prepare does not automatically guarantee you will get the full 25 points. How many points you are given will depend on the article you choose, what your evaluation is, how well you write it up, and how closely you follow the directions I’ve provided. A single article is worth 12 points. I will grade your input: 2 points for each of the three questions, 4 points for a good article, 2 points for grammar.

“Articles” are written compositions. In other words, the article is accompanied by prose and is not just a picture, table, or illustration with a brief description. These articles should illustrate the uses of statistics in describing, explaining, or justifying some idea, problem, issue, or concept in a business, economics, medical, education or other similar field.

Those articles illustrating descriptive statistics will often contain examples of graphs, charts, or tables. Those articles illustrating inferential statistics discuss hypothesis testing, correlation analysis, or estimates of population characteristics based on sample analysis. A good inferential example would be surveys.