Acc6.8 Data Sets and Distributions

This unit is meant only as an overview of some key statistical concepts. Students are introduced to dot plots and histograms as ways of visualizing data and distributions. They informally describe the distributions using center and spread before more formally computing mean, median, mean absolute deviation, and interquartile range as ways of quantifying the center and variability. Then, students consider what they can do when they do not have access to all of the necessary data. Ways to get samples, why using random processes is important, and how information from samples can be variable are all introduced. An optional section examining probability is provided at the end of the unit.