Statistics and its Importance

 

Statistics is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. In Singular Sense, it is the science which deals with collection, classification, organization, analysis and interpretation of numerical data. In Plural Sense, it is the aggregate of the facts which is collected in systematic manner for a predetermined purpose and placed in relation to each other.

Characteristics of Statistics:

a.      It is the aggregate of facts.

b.     It is numerically expressed.

c.      It is enumerated or estimated according to the reasonable standard of accuracy.

d.     It is collected in systematic manner.

e.      It is pre-determined in purpose.

f.       It is capable of being placed in relation each other.

Importance of Statistics:

a.      It simplifies the complexity of mass figures.

The function of statistics is to present the huge mass of figures into a simple, presentable and understandable form. Statistical methods extract meaningful information from the mass of data. It is impossible for one to remember the whole set of data. The whole mass of data is useless if it is not simplified through statistical techniques.

b.     It facilitates comparison.

Comparison of similar facts is always expected in various studies. Statistical techniques like average ratio, coefficient of variation and many more facilitates comparison among two or more than two group. For eg: The performance of one college can be presented clearly only by comparing it with the performance of same others.

c.      Statistics present the facts in a definite form.

Numerical expressions are more convincing than qualitative expressions. One of the most important functions of statistics is to present the facts in a qualitative form. For eg: The statement “the literacy rate of Nepal has increased in 1999 from last years makes a little sense unless it is expressed as “the literacy rate of Nepal is 35% in 1999 whereas it was 31% last year.”

d.     It helps in forecasting.

The knowledge of future trends is important in framing plans and policies. Statistical methods are most useful in the forecasting of future events based upon the historical record and other factors. For eg: The forecasting of demand of a certain products helps the company to make its pricing policy, personal policy and so on.

e.      It helps in formulating and testing hypothesis.

Statistical methods are extremely helpful in formulating and testing the hypothesis based on the statistical evidence.

f.       It helps in formulating policies.

It provides basic material for framing suitable policies in any firm or organization or nation. It depends upon the statistical evidence and analysis of the situation.

g.     It helps in planning.

Statistics is one of the crucial parts of planning. Without statistics, the plan can’t be possible. Statistics helps to do planning in business, economics, and government level. In the modern era, planning is everything. And almost every governmental organization, as well as a private one, are using statistics to formulate their policy and to do adequate planning. Statistics is all about the collection of data. To do solid planning, companies use the data related to production, consumption, birth, death, income, and so on. Statistics is helping the countries to do adequate planning that is crucial for them—the best examples of planning we see on COVID 19 pandemic. We have seen that the Government of Newzealand has created the plan to fight against COVID 19, and they have successfully handled the situation to get rid of COVID 19. This pandemic show the importance of statistics in our daily life.

Importance of Statistics in the Various fields:

(i) Statistics in Mathematics

Statistics is an essential part of mathematics. In other words, it is related as well as entirely depends upon mathematics. But nowadays, it is turned into the most advanced mathematical theory of Integration and Measures. The increasing use of mathematics and statistics is building new ways for the development of statistics, i.e., known as Mathematical statistics. Statistics is an essential branch of mathematics. Applied mathematics is a part of statistics that is specialized in data.

Applied mathematics is a part of statistics that is specialized in data. Computational mathematics is based on advanced statistics.

(ii) Statistics in Economics

Statistics and Economics are interrelated with each other. It is impossible to separate them. The development of advanced statistics has open new ways to extensive use of statistics in Economics.

Almost every branch of Economics uses statistics, i.e., consumption, production, distribution, public finance. All these Economic branches use statistics for comparison, presentation, interpretation, and so on.

Income spending problems on and various sections of the people. National wealth production, demand, and supply adjustment, the effect of economic policies. All these indicate the importance of statistics in the field of economics and its various branches. Basically, the government uses statistics in economics to calculate its GDP and Per capita Income.

(iii) Statistics in Social Sciences

In social science, the variation in observations from time to time, object to object, and place to place.

Statistical tools of regression and correlation analysis are used in social science to isolate the effect of these factors in every tested observation. Statistics are also used to conduct social surveys. The social survey uses the Sampling techniques and estimation theory. Actually, these are the most powerful tools for conducting a social survey.

Sociology is a crucial part of social studies. Statistics is also playing a critical role in sociology. It helps in studying mortality, fertility, population growth, and so on.

(iv) Statistics in Trade

Trade without statistics is pretty tough and can be overwhelming for traders. It helps the trades to make wise decisions in uncertain situations. Business is full of risks and uncertainties; anything can happen at any stage. That’s why it is crucial to forecast every step in business. The statistical record helps  to do forecasting efficiently and effectively.

(v) Statistics in Research Work

Research work is all about statistics. The research worker’s job is to present the data before the community. The research worker uses statistical methods to solve particular problems under differing conditions.

Statistics are the basics of every research activity. In other words, research can’t be possible without statistics. The researcher should have excellent statistics skills to be a good researcher. It helps to keep the interest of the researcher in the research work.

(Vi) Statistics in Programming

Statistics is playing a crucial role in programming. Nowadays, most of the advanced programming is based on statistics. Most of the Python developers are learning statistics to enhance their career in programming. Statistics is the foundation of artificial intelligence and machine learning. One can’t get good command over these technologies without the help of statistics.

It also helps to improve your programming logic. Statistics is widely used in some of the most popular programming languages i.e., Java, Python, Swift, C, and C++.

(VII) Statistics in Big Data and Data Science

Statistics are widely used in data analytics and data science technologies. But it is the foundation of Big data technologies too. Big data is nothing without the data, and data is useless without statistics.

Thus Big Data technology totally depends on statistics. Statistics is used at the initial stage of Big data on the raw data sorting.

(VIII) Statistics in the Health Industry

Statistics is playing its part in the health industry. It helps the doctor to take and manage the data of their patients. Apart from that WHO is also using statistics to generate their annual report on the heath populations of the world. Due to statistics, the medical scientist has invented lots of vaccines and anti tode to fight against major diseases.

In this COVID 19 Pandemic, the statistics are playing a crucial role in analyzing how much patience is all around the world, which region has the most number of cases and much more. All this happening is all because of statistics.

(IX)Statistics in Business or Business Statistics

Business is dependent on statistics. Almost every business uses statistics to perform its day to day operations. But here in this blog, we are talking about the importance of statistics. Statistics are crucial for the business to make future decisions. They collect the data and process their customer’s data with the help of statistics. And then take the decision from that data to make changes in their strategies and policies.

Apart from that, the R & D department of any business relies on statistics. They used the recent statistics to develop the new product and services for business. It helps them to make a decision about the latest product and services. And the company can take the calculative risk on the launch of the product or services.

Besides, businesses also use it to calculate their profit, their employee salary, and so on. COVID 19 Pandemic also increases the use of statistics in business. Now the company is working to minimize its loss in this Pandemic duration.

Each large organization uses business statistics and utilize various data analysis tools. For instance, approximating the probability and see where sales can be headed in the future. Several tools are used for business statistics, which built on the bases of mean, median, and mode, the bell curve, and bar graphs, and basic probability. These can be employed for research problems related to employees, products, customer service, and much more. Business can successfully rely on the things what is working and what is not.

Besides this, statistics are widely used in consumer goods products. The reason is consumer goods are daily used products. The business use statistics to calculate which consumer goods are available in the store or not.

They also used stats to find out which store needs the consumer goods and when to ship the products. Even proper statistics decisions are helping the business to make massive revenue on consumer goods.

(X) Government

The importance of statistics in government is utilized by making judgments about health, populations, education, and much more. It may help the government to check out what education schedule can be beneficial for students. What is the progress report of high school students using that particular curriculum? The government can assemble specific data about the population of the country using a census.

(XII) Education

The beneficial importance of statistics in education are that teachers can be considered to be supportive as researchers during their classrooms to recognize what education technique works on which pupils and know the reason why. They also need to estimate test details to determine whether students are working expectedly, statistically, or not. There are statistical studies about student achievement at all levels of testing and education, from kindergarten to a GRE or SAT.

Some Parts are adopted from:

a.      Handouts provided by Dr Ananta Raj Dhungana, Lecturer, SDSE, PoU

b.     https://medium.com/@john_marsh7/10-awesome-reasons-why-statistics-are-important-96b87e283640