Statistical Questions
Tell a statistical question from one with a single fixed answer: a statistical question anticipates variability ('How tall are the students in my class?' rather than 'How tall am I?') and is answered by collecting many values
What a learner can do afterwards
- Sort questions into statistical and non-statistical, explaining that the statistical ones expect varied answers
- Rewrite a fixed-answer question as a statistical one (e.g., turn 'How old is my teacher?' into 'How old are the teachers at my school?')
- Pose a statistical question about their class and describe what data they would collect to answer it
1 · Read
Some questions have one exact answer. Ask 'How old are you?' and there is only one number that answers it: your age. Other questions expect many different answers, because people are different. Ask 'How old are the students in my class?' and you get a whole range of ages back. Questions like that are called statistical questions, because answering them means collecting data from many people, not just one.
Maya's teacher gives her two questions: 'How old is Maya?' and 'How old are the students in Maya's class?' The first has one exact answer, Maya's own age. The second sends Maya around the room asking every student, and the ages come back different every time. Only the second question is statistical.
To check if a question is statistical, ask yourself: will everyone answer the same way, or will the answers spread out? If they spread out, you're looking at a statistical question.
A statistical question expects different answers from different people, so you answer it by collecting many values, not just one.
More to read
41.2: Statistical Questions
A statistical question expects many different answers, not one fixed answer. How old are the teachers at my school? is statistical because each teacher gives a different age. How old is my teacher? is not, because one person has one age. The test is variety: picture asking the whole group and hearing a spread of replies. What is 7 x 8? fails the test (one correct answer). How many pets do pupils in my class have? passes it (answers vary from home to home).
Section 41: Data, Variability, and Statistical Questions
Data only exists where answers vary, and variability is what statistics studies. A question with a single answer needs no data collection; you just look the answer up. A statistical question forces you to gather many values and summarise them. Turning a fixed question into a statistical one means widening the group: my teacher becomes the teachers at my school, my height becomes the heights in my class. The wider group creates the spread that data tools (tables, dot plots, averages) then describe.
Data and statistics FAQ
Statistics starts with asking the right kind of question and ends with answering it from data. Good questions name a group and a measurement: how many hours of sport do Year 6 pupils do each week? The group is Year 6, the measurement is weekly sport hours. Answering means planning collection: ask every pupil, record each number honestly, then summarise. One friend's answer is an anecdote, not data. Representative collection (the whole group, not three friends) is what lets the answer stand.
Key ideas: developing a statistical project
A statistical project runs in four moves: pose a question with varied answers, collect data from the group, display it (tally, dot plot), and answer in a sentence. Each move depends on the last: a fixed-answer question leaves the later moves with nothing to do. The final sentence must reference the data: most Year 6 pupils do 2 to 3 hours, based on 24 replies. Vague endings (sport is popular) waste the collection work. Precise question, honest data, exact answer: that chain is statistics.
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Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
18 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.