At the end of this section, you will be able to:
‹ Define statistics
‹ Differentiate between descriptive and inferential statisticsWhat Do the Quantitative
Data Mean?
Rosalind M. Peters, Nola A. Schmidt,
and Moira Fearncombe
13.1 Using Statistics to Describe the Sample
Originally the term statistics referred to information about the government because the word is derived
from the Latin statisticum, meaning “of the state.” It was given its numerical meaning in 1749 when Gott-
fried Achenwall, a German political scientist, used the term to designate the analysis of data about the
state (Harper, 2013). Currently, there are two meanings of the term statistics. Statistics, with a capital S, is
used to describe the branch of mathematics that collects, analyzes, interprets, and presents numerical data
in terms of samples and populations, while statistics, with a lowercase s, is used to describe the numerical
outcomes and the probabilities derived from calculations on raw data.
When reporting the results of their study, researchers often present two types of statistics: descriptive
and inferential. Descriptive statistics deal with the collection and presentation of data used to explain char-
acteristics of variables found in a sample. As its name implies, descriptive statistics describe, summarize,
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