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Statistics takes its name from the fact that it was traditionally taught to monarchs to enable them to manage affairs of state.
Statistics takes its name from the fact that it was traditionally taught to monarchs to enable them to manage affairs of state.
==Frequentest Approaches==
==Frequentist Approaches==
[[Frequency probability | Frequentist]] approaches are often referred to as classical approaches because it is the oldest and most used method of statistical analysis. The heart of this approach is to try and understand data as a relative frequency or ratio of a particular occurrence out of a total possible number of occurrences. For example, a frequentist would describe the number of times a coin turns up heads as a ratio of total number of heads out of total number of flips.
===Descriptive statistics===
===Descriptive statistics===
Frequentist approahces to descriptive statistics mostly involve averaging. For example, the mean of a sample is calculated as the total value of all observations divided by total number of trials, and the standard error is calculated by taking the total error size for all samples and dividing by total number of trials.
These methods stem from the view of data as ratios probabilities.
===Inferential statistics===
===Inferential statistics===
Frequentist approaches to inferential statistics primarily involve trying to compare descriptive statistics of two data sets to determine if they are [[statistically significant | significantly]] different. One of the most common approaches is to test a given data set against a [[null hypothesis]] or the data set that would be created if the values were the result of random chance alone. For example, if a given head came up 9 times as heads and 1 time as tails you would compare the number of heads, 9, to the number of heads that would be expected if chance alone was operating, or 5.
Testing against the null hypothesis is sometimes referred to as an [[omnibus]] test since it is testing the idea that a given data set is the result of anything other than chance. Often it is much more desirable to test specific data sets against each other.
==Bayesian Approaches==
==Bayesian Approaches==