Question

In: Statistics and Probability

You are planning to study for your statistics examination with a group of classmates, one of...

You are planning to study for your statistics examination with a group of classmates, one of whom you particularly want to impress. This individual has volunteered to use statistical software to get the needed summary information, tables, and charts for a data set containing several numerical and categorical variables assigned by the professor for study purposes. This person contacts you about the printouts and exclaims: “I’ve got it all – the means, the medians, the standard deviations, the boxplots, the pie charts – for all our variables. The problem is, some of the printouts look weird like the boxplots for gender and for major and the pie charts for salary and for height. Also, I cannot understand why the professor said we can’t get the descriptive statistics for some of the variables – I got them for everything! See, the mean height is 68.3, the mean for salary is 54,327, the mean for gender is 1.5, and the mean for major is 4.6.” What is your reply?

Solutions

Expert Solution

EXPLANATION OF WHY DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS IS NOT TO BE APPLIED FOR QUALITATIVE DATA SUCH AS GENDER,:

The Descriptive statistics, viz., (i) Measures of Central Tendency (Mean, median, Mode), (ii) Measures of Variation (Range, Mean Deviation, Standard Deviation, Variance), (iii) Skewness and (iv) Kurtosis are meaningful only for Quantitative Data, such as height, salary etc. For Qualitative Data such as gender, they are meaningless because of the following reason:

Qualitative data are categorical in type: Ordinal (variables have a natural ordered categories, such as Unhappy, Happy Very Happy) or nominal. (Labeling variables such as Gender: Male/ Female). THE QUALITATIVE DATA ARE NOT MATHEMATICALLY TRACTABLE; i.e., we cannot do mathematical operations with qualitative data and that is the reason Descriptive statistics have no meaning for Qualitative data.

Even assuming that we give numerical values to qualitative data, the results of the analysis will be meaningless as shown below:

Consider 4 Males and 5 Females. Let us give 1 for Male and 2 for female. Thus, we get the mean of the data as :[ (4X1) + (5 X 2) ]/2 = 14/2 = 7, which is meaningless.


Related Solutions

A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is...
A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is to enter the fast-growing craft beer industry. Your projected sales in the first year is 7500 kegs. Your projected growth rate is 5 percent. Entering the business will require $35,000 of net working capital. Total fixed costs are $95,000. Variable production costs are $32 per keg and keg sales are priced at $56 each. The equipment to begin production is $175,000. The equipment will...
Anopportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is to enter...
Anopportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is to enter the fast-growing craft beer industry. Your projected sales in the first year is 8300 kegs. Your projected growth rate is 5 percent. Entering the business will require $35,000 of net working capital. Total fixed costs are $95,000. Variable production costs are $36 per keg and keg sales are priced at $57 each. The equipment to begin production is $175,000. The equipment will be depreciated...
A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is...
A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is to enter the fast growing craft beer industry. Your projected sales in the first year is 7500 kegs. Your projected growth rate is 8 percent. Entering the business will require $35,000 of net working capital. Total fixed costs are $95,000. Variable production costs are $30 per keg and keg sales are priced at $55 each. The equipment to begin production is $175,000. The equipment...
A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is...
A business opportunity has presented itself to you and one of your classmates. Your opportunity is to enter the fast-growing craft beer industry. Your projected sales in the first year is 8300 kegs. Your projected growth rate is 5 percent. Entering the business will require $35,000 of net working capital. Total fixed costs are $95,000. Variable production costs are $36 per keg and keg sales are priced at $57 each. The equipment to begin production is $175,000. The equipment will...
Study the exchange rate policy of one country (or one group of countries) of your choice...
Study the exchange rate policy of one country (or one group of countries) of your choice and write a short report on what they did (fixed/pegged/floating/other interventions…) and their possible motivations (i.e. costs/benefits). The report should be 1-2 pages long with normal text size and line spacing.
Your classmates are a group of friends who have decided to open a small retail shop....
Your classmates are a group of friends who have decided to open a small retail shop. The team is torn between two storefront ideas. The first idea is to open a high-end antique store, selling household items used for decorations in upscale homes. Members of the team have found a location in a heavily pedestrian area near a local coffee shop. The store would have many items authenticated by a team member’s uncle, who is a certified appraiser. In discussing...
Imagine the following scenario: You are taking the evidence-based practice course and one of your classmates...
Imagine the following scenario: You are taking the evidence-based practice course and one of your classmates shares an EBP project draft with you. You notice that some of the research has not been cited correctly or even at all. When you approach your classmate, the response is that "no one will notice and it is not a big deal anyway." What are your next steps in speaking with your classmate? Consider how this could reflect on the credibility and integrity...
Stealing the Examination As part of your preparation for the upcoming examination, you have the goal...
Stealing the Examination As part of your preparation for the upcoming examination, you have the goal of stealing a copy of the examination. *Note that this is a thought experiment that is you should not try it out in real life. When preparing the exam, the files are stored on the IT servers in a private directory only accessible to academic and examination admin staff (e.g., Julian and Hooman). All staff use their Massey username and passwords to authenticate themselves...
QUESTION ONE The data below represent statistics and probability end of semester examination marks of 30...
QUESTION ONE The data below represent statistics and probability end of semester examination marks of 30 students randomly selected from the population of students who registered for probability and statistics during 2018/2019 academic year. 16 51 36 45 23 48 37 19 28 28 25 36 76 22 27 18 28 42 38 47 44 29 37 42 27 33 35 46 28 27 Using sturge’s approximation rule with all your answers in one decimal place, construct a frequency distribution...
Group Case Study Assignment on IKEA For your group assignment, I'd like you to engage in...
Group Case Study Assignment on IKEA For your group assignment, I'd like you to engage in a strategic investigation of one of the companies listed or your own selection—with instructor’s approval. First, you will define the larger strategic context, specifically focusing on the industry and generic strategy. Then you will identify your company’s core competencey. Finally, you will comment on four potential strategic initiatives that you suggest your company take to grow their business. In all instances, you will need...
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT