Math Statistics: Data

When facts, observations or statements are taken on a particular subject, they are collectively known as data. Data can be numbers arising from counting or measurement, words recorded or images taken, etc.

In this series of lessons, we will consider collecting data either by counting or by measuring.

Example:

When different boxes have different quantities of apples, we could count and record the number of apples in each box. The different quantities of apples in different boxes are the data in this case.

When a teacher measures how tall the school children are, the different heights collected are data.

Organizing Data

Sometimes data are called raw data because they are merely collected or recorded without any processing. Data collected need to be organized and processed to give useful information.

Example:

A study was carried out to find the number of schools in 3 towns. The following data was obtained.

Town A has 5 schools

Town B has 3 schools

Town C has 7 schools

Construct a table to organize the above data.

Solution:

Towns	A	B	C
Number of schools	5	3	7

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