Organisation of Data | Class 11 Economics Notes

RAW DATA

Raw data refers to unclassified, unorganized data collected from various sources. Like the kabadiwallah's junk, raw data are often voluminous, disorganized, and difficult to handle or analyze directly. Presenting raw data in a simple table form, such as marks obtained by 100 students in mathematics (Table 3.1) or monthly household expenditure on food of 50 households (Table 3.2), shows data points scattered without any order. Extracting meaningful information such as highest marks or average expenditure from such raw data is tedious and time-consuming, especially as the size of data increases. For example, finding the highest mark among 1000 students would be cumbersome without classification. The section highlights that raw data consist of observations on variables, and their usefulness depends on the purpose of analysis. For instance, a mathematics teacher looking at raw marks would want to understand students' performance, pass/fail status, etc. To do so, the teacher would classify the data, often by constructing a frequency distribution. The section concludes that classification is necessary to summarize and make raw data comprehensible, enabling easy location, comparison, and inference. The example of the Indian Census is cited, where raw data on 20 crore persons is classified by gender, education, marital status, occupation, etc., to understand population structure. This section thus emphasizes the importance of organizing raw data before statistical analysis.

📊 Diagram: See figure_3: numbers are not arranged in any order. Now if you are asked for the highest marks in mathematics from Table 3.1; See table_1: Table on page 3 (10×10); See table_2: Table on page 3 (10×5)

🧪 Activity: Collect data of total weekly expenditure of your family for a year and arrange it in a table. See how many observations you have. Arrange the data monthly and find the number of observations.

🔗 Connection: Prepares the reader for the next section on Classification of Data, explaining how raw data can be grouped for analysis.

Table on page 3 (10×10)

Table on page 3 (10×5)

Table on page 12 (12×5)

Table on page 17 (3×15)

Table on page 17 (5×14)