In: Statistics and Probability
what is the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics? Think about the statistics behind a credit score - is that descriptive or inferential?
Descriptive statistics, as the name suggests, is analysis of data that helps in describing, showing or summarizing data in a meaningful way. But we can only tell the description about the sample with the help of descriptive statistics. We can not make conclusion about a population from the sample with the use of descriptive statistics.
Inferential statistics, on the other hand, helps us in making conclusion about the population based on sample in hand. We first estimate the population parameters using sample and then conduct a hypothesis test to conclude the findings.
A credit score is calculated based on an individual's credit history. It is purely a descriptive statistic because we describe a statistic (here, credit score) based on parameters that are seen. There is no inferential statistics involved here, because we have the population and we are not inferring anything about the population, nor are we estimating any parameter.