Decoding High School Statistics: A Beginner’s Guide

Statistics regarding high schools are often considered by parents, media, and the general public. But what about statistics in high school? Whether you’re a high school student considering a statistics-related elective or a parent who wants their ward to pass the high school statistics exam, you’ll find this post quite valuable.

What is Statistics in High School?

Statistics is a course/subject in high school that is meant to help students understand how to process and apply numerical data to the real world. High school statistics classes can help students who want to go into accounting, engineering, and even the medical field.

Examples of High School Statistics

Statistics are everywhere around us, and their importance is best illustrated by the fact that you can find them in your class. Let’s look at some examples of high school stats.

• Gender distribution across a Classroom – A STEM class where there are equal numbers of boys and girls has 50% male and 50% female occupancy. This percentage is a statistic based on the total number of students and their reported gender.
• High school graduation rate – 21K School has a high graduation rate because of its adaptive learning strategies. The specific percentage rate, which changes each year, is the statistic in this instance.
• Average marks for a classroom – The classroom average is calculated by adding the total marks of everyone in the class and dividing them across the number of students. All numerical averages are statistics.

Type of Statistics

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics are statistics that paint a picture. The stats themselves communicate something that you do not need to reconcile with other data. Pie charts, bar charts, and scatter plots are some of the methods used for descriptive statistics.

For example, the student graduation rate itself is a piece of descriptive stats for a particular year. 99% of the students might have graduated in 2019. Without reconciling that with other years, though, you can’t infer anything about future classes.

Inferential Statistics

Inferential statistics are stats that are inferred from a pattern or intersection of multiple statistics. Almost every university or college’s acceptance rate is inferred from its recent average. Almost all surveys extract descriptive statistics that lead to inferred ones.

For instance, 96% of the parents surveyed believed that their wards became smarter and more skilled because of their enrollment and education in 21K Schools. 

This is a statistic that communicates a message about all parents, even though there is no feasible way to survey all the parents in any country. But statistics formulas, especially ones that can be used to calculate probability, are instrumental for inference.

Statistics Formulas

Statistics formulas like mean, mode, median, variance, and standard deviation can help students plug data into a process to extract meaning from it. Understanding which formula to apply is far more important than rote memorization of formulae. And good schools make sure that statistics students understand and remember the most valuable formulae.

Here are a few formulae that you would learn in high school statistics

• Sample Mean 
• Population Mean
• Sample Standard Deviation
• Population Standard Deviation

Why Study Statistics in High School?

Studying statistics in high school will help you become a better researcher. Research is required in undergraduate study and is even more important at the post-graduate level. Aside from equipping you with the foundation for your higher education, it can help you get into engineering, accounting, and any math-related field. 

But even disciplines like agricultural education that are not considered mathematical use statistics in their course content.

What do you learn in Statistics Class?

In a statistics class, you learn how to collect, organize, summarize, reconcile, and present numerical data. This is a necessary foundational skill if you intend to pursue higher education.

Why Choose 21K’s High School Statistics Curriculum?

Not all students are equally interested in numbers. To creative students and those interested in linguistics, numbers might be a challenge. 21K School understands that all students are different, yet they need to have a strong foundation in statistics. 

Its Adaptive Teaching helps students with varying degrees of interest in math get a good grasp of this important subject. 21K School’s curriculum is built in a way that each class builds on top of the previous one, making stats easier to understand.

Conclusion

High School Statistics can seem complex and too abstract to be practically useful. However, one cannot complete a university education without a decent understanding of basic statistics. 21K School’s adaptive teaching strategies and student-oriented curriculum make tough yet essential aspects of high school statistics more accessible.