Answer the following questions:
1)
What time does school start?
2)
What time do you think school should start?
3)
Will all the students in the class answer question
1 the same? Why or why not?
4)
Will all the students in the class answer question
2 the same? Why or why not?
5)
What is the difference between question 1 and 2?
Students will identify
statistical questions
Statistical Question: a question that produces
answers that vary from person to person
Variability-how many different answers there
are to a statistical question
Complete “Take a Snapshot” survey
on page 349.
 How do you think your classmates’ answers to the
survey questions will compare to your answers?
Consider the following questions:
1) What is your teacher’s height?
2) How many pets does your
teacher have?
 Will these questions have more than one answer?
 How are these questions different than the survey
questions?
Statistical Questions
Questions that will be different from person
to person
 Which survey questions do you think will
have the greatest amount of variability?
 Which survey questions do you think will
have the least amount of variability?
Distribution: all the values for the
possible answers to a statistical question
Suppose a math test had very little
variability. What would that tell you
about the distribution of test grades?
Try these:
Decide which questions below are statistical questions:
1. What day of the week is today?
2. What colors of cars do the teachers at this school
drive?
3. How thick are the books in the school library?
4. How thick is your science text book?
Types of Data
We use two types of data to answer statistical
questions: numerical data and categorical data.
 If we recorded the age of 25 baseball cards, we
would have numerical data. Each value in a
numerical data set is a number.
 If we recorded the team of the featured player for
25 baseball cards, you would have categorical data.
Although you still have 25 data values, the data
values are not numbers. They would be team
names, which you can think of as categories.
Types of Data
Reflections
How do you recognize questions
that will produce answers with a
lot of variability?
What is the difference between
numerical and categorical data?
Homework:
Statistical Questions worksheet