Defining error and uncertainty

Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Evan Kramer

Instructor

We make errors

  • Errors in judgment
    • How or why things happened
    • Biases, assumptions, psychology
  • Errors in statistics
    • Measures of variation or uncertainty
    • Incorrect conclusions about the data

Perception vs. reality

Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Why care about error?

  • Example
    • New cologne launch
  • Variation
    • Due to chance
    • "Statistical significance"
  • Sampling
    • Representative of population

Sampling error distributions

1 Nurse Key. 2017. "Chapter 15: Sampling." February 17. Accessed Feb. 4, 2019 https://nursekey.com/sampling/
Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Types of statistical errors

  • Type I error
    • "False positive"
      • Sampling
      • Data quality
      • Design
  • Type II error
    • "False negative"
      • Sampling
      • Variation
      • Measurement
Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Measures of central tendency

  • AVERAGE()
    • Mean
  • MEDIAN()
    • Midpoint
  • MODE()
    • Most common value
  • STDEV()
    • Average distance from the average
Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Seattle open data portal

1 https://data.seattle.gov
Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

Let's practice!

Error and Uncertainty in Google Sheets

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