Frankie Jellie A.

Tabingo
BS Psychology-1
Statistics
HISTORY

 The original idea of “statistics" was the collection of information

about and for the “state". The word statistics derives directly, not
from any classical Greek or Latin roots, but from the Italian word for
state.
 In the past, statistics was used by rulers. The application of
statistics was very limited, but rulers and kings needed information
about land, agriculture, commerce, populations of their states to
assess their military potential, their wealth, taxation and other
aspects of government.
 During the 18th century, English writers used the word statistics in
their works, so statistics has developed gradually during the last few
centuries. A lot of work was done at the end of the nineteenth century.

DEVELOPMENT

• 5th century B.C. — Athenians estimated the height of ladders necessary

to scale the walls of Platea by having multiple soldiers count the
bricks, then multiplying the most frequent count (the mode) by the
height of a brick.
• Al-Kindi (801-873 A.D.) wrote “Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic
Messages” which showed how to use frequency analysis to decipher
encrypted messages.
• John Graunt in Natural and Political Observations Made Upon the Bills
of Mortality estimated the population of London in 1662 as 384,000
using records on the number of funerals per year (13,000), the death
rate (3 people per 11 families per year), and average family size (8).
• . During the 20th century, several statisticians were active in
developing new methods, theories and applications of statistics. These
days, the availability of electronics is certainly a major factor in
the modern development of statistics.

STATISTICIANS

• Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher

-was a British statistician and geneticist. For his work in
statistics, he has been described as "a genius who almost single-
handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science"
and "the single most important figure in 20th century
statistics".
• Gertrude Mary Cox
-was an American statistician and founder of the department of
Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State University. She
was later appointed director of both the Institute of Statistics
of the Consolidated University of North Carolina and the
Statistics Research Division of North Carolina State University.
In 1949 Cox became the first woman elected into the International
Statistical Institute and in 1956 was President of the American
Statistical Association.
Frankie Jellie A. Tabingo
BS Psychology-1
Importance of Statistics in Psychology

Statistics is a broader way of organizing, interpreting,

and communicating information in an objective manner. Indeed,
great care has been taken to eliminate as much math from this
course as possible. Statistics is a way of viewing reality as it
exists around us in a way that we otherwise could not.

Without statistics, we would be unable to interpret the

massive amounts of information contained in data. Even small
datasets contain hundreds – if not thousands – of numbers, each
representing a specific observation we made. Without a way to
organize these numbers into a more interpretable form, we would
be lost, having wasted the time and money of our participants,
ourselves, and the communities we serve.

Statistics are often presented in an effort to add

credibility to an argument or advice. For these reasons,
learning about statistics is a long step towards taking control
of your life. (It is not, of course, the only step needed for
this purpose.) The purpose of this course, beyond preparing you
for a career in psychology, is to help you learn statistical
essentials. It will make you into an intelligent consumer of
statistical claims.

You must also learn to recognize statistical evidence that

supports a stated conclusion. Statistics are all around you,
sometimes used well, sometimes not. We must learn how to
distinguish the two cases. In doing so, statistics will likely
be the course you use most in your day to day life, even if you
do not ever run a formal analysis again.