Producing Data

2. Defining Data

2.3 Data and variation

Let's take another look at the data in Table 1. Do you notice any variation in the data?

Table 1 - Personnel records for the University of Hard Knocks

As you can see, all employees do not have exactly the same employment characteristics. For example, Beaumont earns more money than Lee and Smith, Lee has the most leave entitlement, and so on.

This variation happens with other data as well. If we were to keep a record of how students travelled to university, we might note that even the same students do not travel to university the same way every day.

People use statistics to examine variation and to report about variation in newspapers and magazines, in advertising, on television and on the Internet. This is one of the reasons why it is important that you understand how statistics are created and used.

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