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Paper showing signifcant digits

The Numbers Game: Significant Digits, Rounding and Truncating

It is important for those who work with data to know and understand some of the technical aspects of numbers, both when precise measurements and rounded or estimated figures are involved. In this article, we will look at three related aspects…
data analytics word cloud

What’s in the Words: Text Analysis

While it takes human judgment to determine the usefulness of statistical analysis, analyzing quantitative data using the many statistical methods available to us is a relatively straightforward process. Analyzing qualitative data, on the other…
average numbers

The Best “Average”? That Depends.

The word “average” in layman terms is what is called the mean in statistics. But the word “average” in statistical terms can refer to any of the three measures of central tendency: mean, median and mode. As a quick review, the mean arithmetic…
Correlation and causation

Not the Same: Correlation and Causation

When the measures of two phenomena (or factors or variables) change in relation to one another, they are said to be correlated. Sometimes, when one phenomenon changes, the other phenomenon changes because of the first one. That is, there is…
Sampling Data

Segmenting Data: Quartiles, Deciles, Percentiles

We often talk about the top 25% or top 10% or even top 1% of something. When we are segmenting data into percentages we commonly are talking about quartiles, deciles and percentiles. Quartiles divide the data into four parts; deciles divide…
file explaining the field of data science

The History of the Data Science Field

Data Science: Where did it come from and what is it now? The field of data science is relatively new, though the ideas that it encompasses are not. Data science is an outgrowth of statistical analysis and has been made possible by the ever-stronger…
statistical symbols on a chalkboard

It’s Not All Greek: Statistical Symbols & Abbreviations

As with all branches of mathematics, statistics employs many statistical symbols and abbreviations. Below is a list of some of these that you may see in studying standard descriptive and inferential statistics, including probability and hypothesis…
IBM offers a Statistical package called SPSS

SPSS: IBM Statistical Package

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SPSS is a statistical package that was first developed in 1968 as the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), with SPSS, Inc. being established in 1975. In 2010, IBM acquired SPSS, and IBM SPSS became part of IBM’s Business Analytics…
Excel Logo

Office Analysis: Excel & Data

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Microsoft Office’s Excel spreadsheet program offers users a great many features for data organization, description and analysis. In this article, we will take a look at some of the features Excel provides users. Data Validation The data…
Data Mining

The Search Is On: An Introduction to Data Mining

So much data is now collected that, along with the power of computers and statistical methods, it is not very difficult for us to search these data to find relationships among variables that can be used to target efforts in many fields, including…