In most statistical problems treated in the literature a datum of the problem is the information that the various distributions of the chance variables involved belong to given families of distribution functions (d.f.'s) completely specified except for one or more parameters. Non-parametric statistical inference is concerned with problems where the d.f.'s are not specified to such an extent, an...

In this paper we overview and discuss some of the important practical assumptions underlying statistical inference. What we say, though not new, is stressed insu ciently in teaching statistical methods and applications. We build on the important conceptual di erence between enumerative and analytic studies, emphasized by W. Edwards Deming. Our comments, however, go beyond the published views of...

To characterise statistical inference in the workplace this paper compares a prototypical type of statistical inference at work, statistical process control (SPC), with a type of statistical inference that is better known in educational settings, hypothesis testing. Although there are some similarities between the reasoning structure involved in hypothesis testing and SPC that point to key char...