inspection paradox. There are a variety of functions that are used to calculate statistics. Some include: Sample mean, sample median, and sample mode Sample variance and sample standard deviation Sample quantiles besides the median, e.g., quartiles and percentiles Test statistics, such as t-statistic, chi-squared statistic, f statistic Order statistics, including sample maximum and minimum Sample moments and functions thereof, including kurtosis and skewness Various functionals of the empirical distribution function Properties Observability Statisticians often contemplate a parameterized family of probability distributions, any member of which could be the distribution of some measurable aspect of each member of a population, from which a sample is drawn randomly. For example, the parameter may be the average height of 25-year-old men in North America. The height of the members of a sample of 100 such men are measured; the average of those 100 numbers is a statistic. The average of the heights of all members of the population is not a statistic unless that has somehow also been ascertained (such as by measuring every member of the population). The average height that would be calculated using all of the individual heights of all 25-year-old North American men is a parameter, and not a statistic. Statistical properties Important potential properties of statistics include completeness, consistency, sufficiency, unbiasedness, minimum mean square error, low variance, robustness, and computational convenience. Information of a statistic Information of a statistic on model parameters can be defined in several ways. The most common is the Fisher information, which is defined on the statistic model induced by the statistic. Kullback information measure can also be used. See also Statistics Statistical theory Descriptive statistics Statistical hypothesis testing Summary statistic Well-behaved statistic References Parker, Sybil P (editor in chief). "Statistic". McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Fifth Edition. McGraw-Hill, Inc. 1994. . Page 1912. DeGroot and Schervish. "Definition of a Statistic". Probability and Statistics. International Edition. Third Edition. Addison Wesley. 2002. . Pages 370 to 371.