Introduction to Statistics - Lab Exercises

Exercise 1: Software Exercise - Descriptive Statistics

1. Download the file "DummyData.txt". Save the content of the file as a TEXT file (i.e., containing ASCII characters only) and import this file into the statistics program of your choice. Please note that the first line of the file contains the names of the variables followed by 500 rows of measures. Each case is in a row by itself, and is separated from other cases by a line ending. Measures within rows are seperated by horizontal tabs. Review these suggestions if you encounter difficulties at this step.
   Note that Variable 1: "Number" contains measures that are ordinal, Variable 2: "Who" is nominal, while Variables 3: "Brightness" and 4: "Size" are both continuous.
2. You are charged with the task of explaining the content of each variable to your blind collaborator, Stevie. Obviously reading the value for each row would be tedious and, more importantly, not very useful. Can you summarize the distributions of these variables in a way that would allow him to still get a good idea of what the actual values were?
3. Generate a figure for each variable and think of an effective way to portray it in as few words as possible.

Competences earned this week:

1. Import data as text files into your statistics program
2. Obtain and interpret descriptive statistics for different variable types
3. Things to consider when constructing frequency histograms

Java section

• Choose and install a Java compiler