Introduction to Statistics without Maths: Descriptive Statistics

Dive into the dynamic world of data science

In today’s world, data is everywhere and holds tremendous power. Knowing how to make sense of data can feel overwhelming, particularly if you don’t have a maths background.

By taking this two-week, online course from the University of Lincoln, you’ll gain the necessary foundational skills to analyse and interpret complex datasets effectively in real-world settings.

Upon finishing this course, you can take other statistics courses from the University of Lincoln, including Learn Descriptive Statistics without Maths: Basic Inferential Statistics.

Get to know the basics of descriptive statistics and data structures

At the beginning of this course, you’ll delve into the fundamentals of descriptive statistics, learning key statistical concepts, such as central tendency and dispersion.

To effectively interpret and describe data, you’ll grasp how to understand variables, basic types of data and data structures, and how these datasets are stored.

Explore measures of dispersion to advance your understanding of data visualisation

You’ll explore the basic measures of dispersion, including range, maximum and minimum, and variance, to make informed decisions and draw reliable conclusions from your datasets.

By learning these concepts, you’ll feel confident in your ability to dissect data effectively and make actionable decisions.

Learn from the University of Lincoln’s Experts on Statistics

The University of Lincoln’s experts on Statistics has developed innovative approaches to teaching statistical concepts. They will be there to guide you throughout this course.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a fundamental understanding of statistics without maths which will aid in your interpretation of data analytics.

This course is designed for anyone interested in statistics and data analysis. It may also be useful for social science enthusiasts and anyone required to make data-driven decisions in their jobs. You do not need a maths background for this course.

To really understand data analysis, you will need to also spend some time to learn using the techniques taught on the course. There are lots of different programmes that you can use - please choose the one you are comfortable with. Jamovi is one such option and the one we use within the course:

• Jamovi. This is a free software that you can download onto your computer. A cloud version is available but requires you to create an account and has some limitations in functionality. You can download this at https://jamovi.org/.
• Alongside this, we recommend you work through the step-by-step Jamovi guides available on the StatsMadeEasy Website - link.

• Describing Data & Measures of Central Tendency
• Welcome & Course Overview
• The Basics: Datasets and Variables
• Types of Data
• Measures of Central Tendency
• Week Summary
• Measures of Dispersion
• Week 2 Overview
• Measures of Dispersion: Range, Max, Min, Quartiles and Variance
• Variance and Standard Deviation
• Week Summary