by John W. Best and James V. Kahn in Research in Education.1998.
Statistics is a body of mathematical techniques or processes for gathering, organizing,analyzing, and interpreting numerical data. Because most research yields such quantitative data, statistics is a basic tool of measurement, evaluation, and research.
The word statistics is sometimes used to describe the numerical data gathered. Statistical data describe group behavior or group characteristics abstracted from a number of individual observations that are combined to make generalizations possible.
the typical white-collar worker,” or “the representative city” These are statistical concepts and, as group characteristics, may be expressed in measurement of age,size, or any other traits that can be described quantitatively. When one says that “the average fifth-grade boy is 10 years old,” one is generalizing about all fifthgrade boys, not any particular boy.
Thus, the statistical measurement is an abstraction that may be used in place of a great mass of individual
measures.The research worker who uses statistics is concerned with more than the manipulation of data. The statistical method serves the fundamental purposes of description and analysis, and its proper application involves answering the following questions:
1. What facts need to be gathered to provide the information necessary to answer the question or to test the hypothesis?
2. How are these data to be selected, gathered, organized, and analyzed?
3. What assumptions underlie the statistical methodology to be employed?
4. What conclusions can be validly drawn from the analysis of the data?
Research consists of systematic observation and description of the characteristics or properties of objects or events for the purpose of discovering relationships between variables. The ultimate purpose is to develop generalizations that may be used to explain phenomena and to predict future occurrences. To conduct research, one must establish principles so that the observation and description have a commonly understood meaning.
Measurement is the most precise and universally accepted process of description, assigning quantitative values to the properties of objects and events.
