Identifying Statistical Questions
A statistical question anticipates variability in answers — it expects many different responses rather than one exact answer. How many hours do students spend on homework each night? is statistical because answers vary. How many hours did Sarah spend on homework last night? is not statistical because it has one exact answer. This distinction, taught in Reveal Math, Course 1, Module 10, is the foundational concept of 6th grade statistics: understanding that statistics deals with variability and patterns across many data points.
Key Concepts
Statistics is the science of collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data. A statistical question is one that anticipates variability (variety) in the data. This means you expect to get many different answers when you ask the question. The answers can be numerical (numbers) or categorical (words/categories).
A non statistical question is one that has a single, exact, and definitive answer. It does not expect variability.
Common Questions
What is a statistical question?
A statistical question is one that anticipates variability — it expects different answers from different sources. For example, what are the heights of students in this class? expects many different numbers.
What is a non-statistical question?
A non-statistical question has one exact, definitive answer. For example, how tall is the Eiffel Tower? has a single factual answer and does not involve data collection from multiple sources.
How do I tell if a question is statistical?
Ask yourself: would asking this question to many different people (or collecting data many times) give different answers? If yes, it is statistical. If it always gives the same answer, it is non-statistical.
Give an example of a statistical vs. non-statistical question about books.
Statistical: How many books do students in this school read per month? (answers vary). Non-statistical: How many pages are in Harry Potter? (one exact answer).
Why is variability important in statistics?
Statistics exists to understand and describe variability. If everyone gave the same answer, there would be nothing to analyze. Variability is the reason we collect data and look for patterns.
When do 6th graders learn to identify statistical questions?
Module 10 of Reveal Math, Course 1 introduces statistical questions at the start of the Statistical Measures and Displays unit.