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Global Innovation & Leadership, School of

Library resources for BUS5 classes.

Data vs. Statistics

Data refer to observations gathered according to a research methodology (e.g. experiment, simulation, observational study, etc.). Data can generally be categorized as either quantitative (numerical) or qualitative (non-numerical; e.g. text, images, sound, etc.) Qualitative data can sometimes be coded to create quantitative data.

Statistics refer to summaries and/or interpretations of a set of observations (i.e. data). Statistics are calculated from quantitative, or numeric, data.

data versus statistics

Library Databases for Business Statistics

U.S. Statistics

World Data and Statistics