BUAL 2600 EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
data warehouses - Answers - vast digital repositories where data are recorded and
stored electronically
Big Data - Answers - data sets so large that traditional methods of storage and analysis
are inadequate
transactional data - Answers - data collected for recording the company's' transactions
data mining or predictive analytics - Answers - the process of using transactional data to
make other decisions and predictions
business analytics - Answers - describes any use of statistical analysis to drive business
decisions from data
cases - Answers - rows of a data table that correspond to individuals and about whom
we record some characteristics
respondents - Answers - individuals who answer a survey
subjects or participants - Answers - people in an experiment
experimental units - Answers - animals, plants, websites, or other inanimate objects
variables - Answers - characteristics recorded about each individual or case - columns
of the data table and identify WHAT has been measured
metadata - Answers - typically contains info. about how, when, and where (and maybe
why) the data were collected; who each case represents; and the definitions of all the
variables
spreadsheet - Answers - where data are typically saved; rows represent cases; columns
represent variables
relational database - Answers - when two or more separate data tables are linked
together so that information can be merged across them
relation - Answers - each data table in a relational database because it is about a
specific set of cases with info. about each of these cases for all the variables
categorical/qualitative variable - Answers - when a variable names categories and
answers questions about how cases fall into those categories
, quantitative variable - Answers - when a variable has measures numerical values with
units and the variable tells us about the quantity of what is measured
identifier variable - Answers - a unique identifier assigned to each individual or item in a
group
nominal variables - Answers - categorical variables used only to name categories (that
don't have order)
ordinal - Answers - when data values can be ordered
time series - Answers - variables that are measured at regular intervals over time
cross-sectional data - Answers - when several variables are all measured at the same
time point
frequency table - Answers - organizes data by recording totals and category names as
in the table below
3 rules of data analysis - Answers - 1. reveal things that can't be seen in a table of
numbers
2. show important features and patterns in the data
3. provide an excellent means for reporting findings to others
area principle - Answers - the area occupied by a part of the graph should correspond to
the magnitude of the value it represents
bar chart - Answers - displays the distribution of a categorical variable, showing the
counts for each category next to each other for easy comparison
relative frequency bar chart - Answers - when the counts are replaced with percentages;
looks the same as the bar chart, but shows the proportion of visits in each category
rather than counts
pie charts - Answers - show the whole group of cases as a circle sliced into pieces with
sizes proportional to the fraction of the whole in each category
categorical data condition - Answers - the data are counts or percentages of individuals
in categories; be sure the categories don't overlap; consider what you are attempting to
communicate about the data
contingency table - Answers - sho how individuals are distributed along each variable
depending on the value of the other variable
marginal distribution - Answers - total count that occurs when the value of that variable
is held constant (in a contingency table)
data warehouses - Answers - vast digital repositories where data are recorded and
stored electronically
Big Data - Answers - data sets so large that traditional methods of storage and analysis
are inadequate
transactional data - Answers - data collected for recording the company's' transactions
data mining or predictive analytics - Answers - the process of using transactional data to
make other decisions and predictions
business analytics - Answers - describes any use of statistical analysis to drive business
decisions from data
cases - Answers - rows of a data table that correspond to individuals and about whom
we record some characteristics
respondents - Answers - individuals who answer a survey
subjects or participants - Answers - people in an experiment
experimental units - Answers - animals, plants, websites, or other inanimate objects
variables - Answers - characteristics recorded about each individual or case - columns
of the data table and identify WHAT has been measured
metadata - Answers - typically contains info. about how, when, and where (and maybe
why) the data were collected; who each case represents; and the definitions of all the
variables
spreadsheet - Answers - where data are typically saved; rows represent cases; columns
represent variables
relational database - Answers - when two or more separate data tables are linked
together so that information can be merged across them
relation - Answers - each data table in a relational database because it is about a
specific set of cases with info. about each of these cases for all the variables
categorical/qualitative variable - Answers - when a variable names categories and
answers questions about how cases fall into those categories
, quantitative variable - Answers - when a variable has measures numerical values with
units and the variable tells us about the quantity of what is measured
identifier variable - Answers - a unique identifier assigned to each individual or item in a
group
nominal variables - Answers - categorical variables used only to name categories (that
don't have order)
ordinal - Answers - when data values can be ordered
time series - Answers - variables that are measured at regular intervals over time
cross-sectional data - Answers - when several variables are all measured at the same
time point
frequency table - Answers - organizes data by recording totals and category names as
in the table below
3 rules of data analysis - Answers - 1. reveal things that can't be seen in a table of
numbers
2. show important features and patterns in the data
3. provide an excellent means for reporting findings to others
area principle - Answers - the area occupied by a part of the graph should correspond to
the magnitude of the value it represents
bar chart - Answers - displays the distribution of a categorical variable, showing the
counts for each category next to each other for easy comparison
relative frequency bar chart - Answers - when the counts are replaced with percentages;
looks the same as the bar chart, but shows the proportion of visits in each category
rather than counts
pie charts - Answers - show the whole group of cases as a circle sliced into pieces with
sizes proportional to the fraction of the whole in each category
categorical data condition - Answers - the data are counts or percentages of individuals
in categories; be sure the categories don't overlap; consider what you are attempting to
communicate about the data
contingency table - Answers - sho how individuals are distributed along each variable
depending on the value of the other variable
marginal distribution - Answers - total count that occurs when the value of that variable
is held constant (in a contingency table)
