5-1 Math - Statistics & Probability: Data Sets and Averages

Understanding statistics and probability requires a variety of specialized vocabulary. In this lesson, we will begin with the most essential words for general understanding.

For the vocabulary in this lesson, it’s useful to begin with an example. Imagine 9 students are comparing their most recent test scores, which are listed below.

The numbers above are the quantitative data that comprise the data set. “Quantitative” is just the adjective for the word “quantity.” As such, quantitative data is number data. If our data were the students’ names, this would not be quantitative data.

A data set is a collection of quantitative data which we can examine individually or all together as a group. Mean, mode and median are three different kinds of averages that useful for describing data sets.