Definition
Statistics
Statistics is the study of using data to answer questions and support conclusions.
What it means
Statistics turns a question into an evidence-based answer. You decide what data can answer the question, collect or choose them fairly, show and summarise what happened, then explain what the evidence does—and does not—support.
Remember it
Question → data → display and summary → evidence-based answer.
Example
Five children record pages read: 2, 4, 3, 5, 3. A dot plot shows the values, the median is 3, and four of the five values are at least 3. Those facts answer the question with data instead of a guess.
Watch for
Making a graph is only one part of statistics; the question, data quality, summary, and interpretation matter too.
Common mix-up
A statistic is one numerical summary, while statistics is the wider discipline and process.
Exact meaning
Statistics is the discipline of learning from data: posing questions, collecting or choosing data, organising and representing them, describing variation, and interpreting what the evidence supports.