Section 6.1

Representing Data

When you operate a business, the more you know about your customer, the better you can serve that customer. For this reason, companies like Target, Amazon, and Google collect as much information as possible about their customers.  This information, called data, might include a list of all of your purchases, your gender, your age, or your most recent Internet search results. A business will conduct experiments to collect data. An experiment is any process that results in some type of data. These companies monitor your purchases using loyalty cards or from your online behavior.

Statistics are used to turn this data into charts, graphs, and numerical measures. These items are used to make decisions about the business or to market to the customer better. Studies have shown that the earlier a company attracts a customer, the more loyal that customer will be in the future. Target is able to determine when a customer is pregnant based on their purchases. They can tell whether the customer is pregnant or whether they are simply making purchases for another person. With this knowledge, they are able to customize the offers and coupons made to the expectant mother. Often they are able to do this even before the expectant mother has disclosed their pregnancy to any other person. By securing the loyalty of the mother, they are able to increase sales to the mother and to her children in the future.

In this section, we’ll examine several different datasets. Since some of these datasets may be quite length, you’ll learn how to use table and charts to summarize the data. This makes the data easier to understand and utilize to make decisions.


Read in Section 6.1

Section 6.1 Workbook (PDF)– 9/4/19

Watch Videos