The word 'Statistics' is derived from Latin word Status, Italian word Statista and the German word Statistik, each of words which mean Political State. Thus, Statistics is a collection of facts about the state or the people in the state for political purposes. The statistics originated from the quite dissimilar fields, viz., games of chance, political states etc.
The word Statistics is used in two ways. It is used in the plural and other in singular sense.1) Statistics As a Plural Sense
It refers to numerical statements of facts. Thus we say that there are statistics in the Nepal Bank journal, Report of CBS etc. Similarly the information of growth economy rate, birth, death,national income bulletin etc are statistics. Prof. Horace Secrist defined statistics as:"By statistics, we can aggregates of facts, affected to a marked extent by multiplicity of causes, numerically expressed enumerated or estimated according to reasonable standards of accuracy, collected in a systematic manner for a per-determined purpose and placed in relation to each other".
This definition includes all aspects of Statistics. The definition has the following features:
(i) Statistics are Aggregate of Facts:- The figures of births, deaths sales, purchase, production, profits etc. over different times, places etc will constitute statistics.
(ii) Statistics are Numerically Expressed:- Only numerical data constitute statistics i.e. expressed in numbers. For example,' Nepal is a developing country' and 'the production of rice is not sufficient are not constitute statistics.
(iii) Statistics Affected by Multiplicity of Causes:- Numerical figures should affected by multiplicity of factors. For example, the production of rice affected by fertilizers, soil, method of cultivation, water and so on.
(iv) Statistics are Collected in a Systematic Manner:- Before collecting statistics a suitable plan of data collection should be prepared and the word carried out in a systematic manner. Data collected in a haphazard manner would very likely lead to fallacious conclusions.
(v) Statistics are Collected Pre-determined Purposes:- The purpose of collecting data be decided in advance. The purpose should be specific and well defined.
2) Statistics as Singular Sense
Boddington defined Statistics as,' Statistics as the science of estimates and probabilities". Similarly Bowley defined Statistics as,' Statistics as the science of counting''. These are narrow definition because they cover only one aspect of Statistics.
The definition covers clearly following aspects of Statistics:
(i) Collection of Data:- It should be handled carefully to meet the purpose for which inquiry was planned.
(ii) Organisation of Data:- The data may be obtained from different sources e.g. primary and secondary. They are unorganized from so we should edit and classify it.
(iii) Presentation of Data:- After collecting and organizing the data, we should present in some suitable form of tables of diagrams or graphs.
(iv) Analysis of Data:- The measures of central tendency and dispersion e.g mean, median, mode, range etc are the part of analysis of data.
(v) Interpretation of Data:- The final step consists of drawing conclusions from the collected and analyzed data. The interpretation of data is a very difficult task and requires a high degree skill, care judgement etc.
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