Types of statistical methods

• Descriptive statistical methods
  
  
  • Provide summary indices for a given data, e.g.
    arithmetic mean, median, standard deviation,
    coefficient of variation, etc.
  
  
  
  


• Inductive (inferential) statistical methods
  
  
  • Produce statistical inferences about a population
    based on information from a sample derived from
    the population, need to take variation into account
  
  
  
  

7

sample (^) Population
Estimating population values from sample values