Overview
Today's session will have three purposes
1. To discuss how population data can be expressed
2. To discuss critical issues pertaining to data collection, presentation, and exchange
3. To begin a discussion of the graphical presentation of data
Today's session will continue our discussion
of data that we began on Wednesday. Today we will describe some ways
in which population data can be expressed, and a few issues
surrounding the use of data, especially in the decades to come. Then
we will begin a discussion, to be continued on Monday, about the
graphical presentation of data.
I. Data are often used to depict information about a population
A. Generate a histogram
B. Measures of central tendency
1. Mean
2. Mode
3. Median
C. Measures of variability
1. Range
2. Variance
3. Standard deviation
D. Histogram analysis of populations often result in a bell-shaped curve
1. Discuss population parameters in relation to curve
2. Sometimes get bimodal and trimodal distributions
3. Need to be aware of kurtosis and skewness in bell-shaped curve
II. Additional issues relating to data
A. An important activity conducted in labs is Quality Assurance / Quality Control (QA/QC). Each lab should follow a set of standards to provide confidence in the data. See example 1, example 2, example 3.
B. Data are often described by metadata. Information that describes individual categories of data. Generating good metadata will be important for efforts to put data on-line, as metadata provides a basis for searching data among various databases. See example. See also this page.
C. Data are often proprietary, and subject to restrictions concerning intellectual property rights.
D. Exchange and analysis of data in an on-line environment is termed informatics. Data-mining and meta-analyses will be activities that many people will pursue in the future.
III. Graphical Presentation of Data
Premise: Humans need to make sense out of information. Raw numbers are typically difficult to grasp. Therefore, methods for depicting data in a way that is psychologically easier to understand is an important endeavor for those working in technical fields.
Tabular presentations - Still in form of numbers; discuss importance of rows and colums
Return
to Homepage for FRF 101O
This page posted and maintained by Kenneth M. Klemow, Ph.D., Biology Department, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766. (570) 408-4758, kklemow@wilkes.edu.