Why are statistics important?
Posted on: September 30, 2011
Hi; for part of my psychology course at university we have been set the task of doing a weekly blog on various topics. For my first topic I have chosen to write about the importance of statistics both inside and outside psychology as it plays a large part in psychology and my course.
Statistics are used in a variety of ways in psychology but touch upon all the areas from social to neuropsychology and are vital for when it comes to interpreting data and sharing research with both other psychologists and the public. Without statistics it could be argued that psychologists would be unable to test theories, models and present data and results in a way that could be universally understood. Although they play an important part in psychology they also touch on other aspects of everyday life.
They are used in many parts of our everyday lives as a way to display information in a way that is more accessible to the general public. Whether they are highly visible, like those used on adverts to try and convince you to buy or use the product, or in the background. It touches on all areas of our lives whether directly or indirectly. It plays a major part in psychology and most other sciences but it is also dominant in medicine, government service and nursing to just name a few.
“The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard.” (John Tukey).
Statistics is only going to get more important as the years go on, as everything becomes more and more computerised and therefore the statistics becomes easier to calculate and more accessible.
Hal Varian “I keep saying that the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. And I am not kidding”
9 Responses to "Why are statistics important?"
October 5, 2011 at 7:08 am
I enjoyed reading this blog and like how you show that statistics are important in many different aspects of life, academia and so on.
Also, I like your point on how statistics will become more important over the years to come. I think that with a lot of the advances in medicine, e.g. Cancer Research, research into improving our health care, prison services and so on, statistics are going to be used more and more in order to analyse this behaviour.
Yes, with the use of the internet/computers statistics will become easier to calculate but I still think that in order to properly understand what the data shows you will need some experience of working with statistics or at least to have been taught some form of statistics.
Look forward to reading your next entry.
October 5, 2011 at 2:53 pm
I agree with you that there will be a greater emphasis on having a background in statistics in the future with the development of various treatments like prpklm suggest but i don’t think it would become any easier. Things are becoming more computerised but we use computer programmes as an aid to analysing data and computing results. We still need to understand the results these programmes are producing and have the ability to notice any discrepancies within such results. Dont you think? I did however like your use of quotes and bring to people attention that statistics if a huge part of people lives whether they want it to be or not.
Psuc0f
October 5, 2011 at 6:02 pm
I enjoyed reading your first blog. The tone of arguement is easy to understand and I agree with the notion that statistics is not just important in research, but also in every aspect of our lives, although perhaps an example such as choosing your child’s school/ choosing an area to live based on crime rates would have added evidence to the claim that it is important in the wider world. The quotes are fun and enable the readers attention to be kept to the blog (which for me is good, as I have an awful attention span). I also agree that statistics could become more prevalent in the future due to the increased technology, but also due to the fact that people nowadays are becoming fussier and fussier so will demand to have more information (statistics) to base their decisions on purchases on.
Well done on your blog!!!!!
October 6, 2011 at 4:03 pm
I like how you explained statistics in psychology, and then branched out to explain about statistics in everyday life and the media. I especially liked how you used interesting and fun quotes to liven up your blog and make statistics seem more interesting rather than dull and boring. Well done on your first blog, i look forward to reading the next one:)
October 6, 2011 at 8:33 pm
I agree with what you have talk about and loved all you thoughts!
I also agree that technology is becoming more and more stronger and that society soon will be full of gadgets and that will be done through computer systems. However I do not believe that it will change the importance of statistics, it may make the background stronger, if there are more statistical tests, thus making hypothesis evidence stronger, but I do not believe that it will become more important, as its importance is significant now,
October 7, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Well done on an informative first blog. I particularly like your use of quotes which are actually relevant and not just thrown in for no reason. I have been commenting on other blogs and saying psychological examples may be useful-you have used psychology as the main body of your blog which I enjoyed. I agree with you that statistics are important in other scientific areas as well as psychology. My only criticism is maybe a lack of examples, using more examples could make your blog a bit more ‘user friendly’ I was not sure what you meant by ‘directly and indirectly’ and an example of both would have been useful. I look forward to reading your next blog.
October 7, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Hi. well done for your first post. I really liket, it flows well. I like the quetes that you used as I found that really interesting.
You also gave lots of examples where statistics can be used outside psychology , Like in medicine etc. People usally do not realise that statistics can be used in different aspects of the life other than maths, so I really liked it that you mentioned thta.
You also made important point about statistics becoming more important in couple of years times. It is higly likely as scientcis try to test everything – there was one study that tested relationship with chewingum and attention. Which is pointless to do so to me but it shows that people are getting curious about everything, And that stats is our future.
Looking forward of reading your next post.
October 7, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Your blog was very welcoming to read, you really related to everyone on the corse in your opening paragraph and lead me to read on.
Your use of quotes was really good and is a unique, refreshing take on what I have already seen.
You could maybe display a little more statistical knowlege within your language, mentioning types of tests or a small explination on how we get to the results that describe our findings.
However your ideas where clear and I definatly agree with how important stats is in every aspect of life, not only psychology.
Good blog!
chocolateraisons 
October 5, 2011 at 1:15 am
You seem to approach the question quite well but get a little bit bogged down in the middle with relating to statistics outside of psychology – I think I would like to see more discussion on stats in psychology and the different uses for it within the field. You say that stats is going to be more important in years to come but don’t really say why? Surely if stats gets easier to calculate it’ll be less important as anyone can do it! Nat x