Parametric statistics is a branch of statistics which assumes that sample data comes from a population that can be adequately modeled by a

probability distribution In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is the mathematical function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of different possible outcomes for an experiment. It is a mathematical description of a random phenomenon ...

that has a fixed set of

parameters A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

. Conversely a non-parametric model does not assume an explicit (finite-parametric) mathematical form for the distribution when modeling the data. However, it may make some assumptions about that distribution, such as continuity or symmetry. Most well-known statistical methods are parametric. Regarding nonparametric (and semiparametric) models, Sir David Cox has said, "These typically involve fewer assumptions of structure and distributional form but usually contain strong assumptions about independencies".

Example

The normal family of distributions all have the same general shape and are ''parameterized'' by

mean There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ar ...

and

standard deviation In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, whil ...

. That means that if the mean and standard deviation are known and if the distribution is normal, the probability of any future observation lying in a given range is known. Suppose that we have a sample of 99 test scores with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 1. If we assume all 99 test scores are random observations from a normal distribution, then we predict there is a 1% chance that the 100th test score will be higher than 102.33 (that is, the mean plus 2.33 standard deviations), assuming that the 100th test score comes from the same distribution as the others. Parametric statistical methods are used to compute the 2.33 value above, given 99

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

observations from the same normal distribution. A non-parametric estimate of the same thing is the maximum of the first 99 scores. We don't need to assume anything about the distribution of test scores to reason that before we gave the test it was equally likely that the highest score would be any of the first 100. Thus there is a 1% chance that the 100th score is higher than any of the 99 that preceded it.

History

Parametric statistics was mentioned by

R. A. Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...

in his work ''

Statistical Methods for Research Workers ''Statistical Methods for Research Workers'' is a classic book on statistics, written by the statistician R. A. Fisher. It is considered by some to be one of the 20th century's most influential books on statistical methods, together with his ''The ...

'' in 1925, which created the foundation for modern statistics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parametric Statistics Statistical inference

Example

History

See also

References