Statistics
Title of the qualification achieved at the end of the course:
GCSE Statistics (Edexcel)
What will you learn/How will you be taught?
Data is crucial to the way our lives work – from communicating with friends to how we develop and trial new medicines. Statistics is all about using data to find answers to questions – How is our climate changing? Is this new vaccine safe? Where should a new school be built? What does the minimum wage need to be?
Statisticians analyse data in order to make decisions and predictions for the future. For example, a government agency can predict the likelihood of criminal activity in a particular area by analysing the frequency of previous crimes; a football manager may decide whether to buy a player based on the average number of goals scored in a season; a cinema may decide whether to show a new film by looking at ticket sales of previous films; a medical research study can analyse the effects of new medicines before they are approved for public use.
You will learn the methods used to make such important decisions and will gain an understanding of the processes involved in data collection, processing, representation and interpretation. The course will incorporate numerous examples of real-life data in various contexts and scenarios and you will have the opportunity to research areas of particular interest to you.
Why study this subject?
This is the course for you if you are a budding:
- Scientist;
- Financial Analyst or Economist;
- Government Policy Maker;
- Business Manager;
- Meteorologist;
- Medical Researcher;
- Market Researcher;
- Actuary;
- Psychologist.
Data is such an important part of our lives that having the ability to understand and analyse it will put you at an advantage over others and enable you to make sense of our ever-changing world. What does the future hold for you?
Will you be the sports analyst who uses statistics to help England win the football World Cup? Will you be the scientist who carries out the tests on the first medical treatment to cure cancer? Will you be the demographic policy maker who uses statistical analysis to solve the problem of world hunger?
As well as being a highly-desirable qualification in itself, GCSE Statistics is the perfect partner to GCSE Mathematics. There is a considerable overlap of content in the two courses, which will help you to get good grades in both subjects. The skills you learn will also be transferable to other subjects such as Science, Geography and Sociology and could help you to improve your grades in these subjects too!
So, if you enjoy maths, have a logical mind and a keen interest in the world around you – choose Statistics.