The word statistics is used both in plural as well as in singular sense. In plural sense, statistics means numeric facts which can be used to draw conclusions and in singular sense, it means the statistical methods with the help of which statistical information is used to treat and draw conclusions from them.

There are following limitations of statistics :

(i) Qualitative Aspect Ignored:

The statistical methods don’t study the nature of phenomenon which cannot be expressed in quantitative terms.

Such phenomena cannot be a part of the study of statistics. These include health, riches, intelligence etc. It needs conversion of qualitative data into quantitative data.

(ii) It does not deal with individual items:

It is clear from the definition given by Prof. Horace Sacrist, “By statistics we mean aggregates of facts and placed in relation to each other”, that statistics deals with only aggregates of facts or items and it does not recognize any individual item. Thus, individual terms as death of 6 persons in a accident, 85% results of a class of a school in a particular year, will not amount to statistics as they are not placed in a group of similar items. It does not deal with the individual items, however, important they may be.

(iii) Statistics can be misused: The result obtained can be manipulated accordingly to one’s own interest and such manipulated results can mislead the community.

(iv) Statistical results lack mathematical accuracy: The results drawn from statistical analysis are normally in approximates. As the satistical analysis is based on observation of mass data, number of inaccuracies may be present and it is difficult to rectify them.

(v) Uniformity and homogeneity of data : It is essential that data must have the quality of uniformity and homogeneity. Heterogeneous data are not comparable. For example, it would be meaningless to compare the heights of men with heights of trees because these figures are of heterogeneous character.