The intent of this chapter is not to make the reader an expert in statistical techniques. Rather, it is to familiarize the reader with the basic statistical techniques in use and demonstrate how Java can support statistical analysis. While there are quite a variety of data analysis techniques, in this chapter, we will focus on the more common tasks.
These techniques range from the relatively simple mean calculation to sophisticated regression analysis models. Statistical analysis can be a very complicated process and requires significant study to be conducted properly. We will start with an introduction to basic statistical analysis techniques, including calculating the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of a dataset. There are numerous approaches used to calculate these values, which we will demonstrate using standard Java and third-party APIs. We will also briefly discuss sample size and hypothesis testing.
Regression analysis is an...