Data Flashcards
nominal data
can be put into categories
ordinal data
can be put into categories
can be placed in order
interval data
can be put into categories
can be placed in order
intervals on the scale are equal
ratio data
can be put into categories
can be placed in order
intervals on the scale are equal
there’s an absolute zero
strengths of mean
+ necessary for further statistical analysis e.g: standard deviation
+ it can always be found
weaknesses of mean
- influenced by anomalous results
- may produce a ‘nonsense’ value that didn’t occur in data set e.g: 2.4 children
strengths of median
+ not influenced by anomalous results
+ can always be found
weaknesses of median
- may produce ‘nonsense’ value that didn’t occur in data set
- not useful in further statistical analysis
strengths of mode
+ only moct that can be used for data measured on nominal scale
+ only moct where value has definitely occurred in data set- not nonsense
weaknesses of mode
- may be more than one mode or no mode
- may not reflect what’s going on in the centre of data set if distribution is skewed
strengths of range
+ quicker to calculate than sd
weaknesses of range
- influenced by anomalous/outlying results
standard deviation
strengths of standard deviation
+ less influenced if there’s an extreme anomalous result
+ more informative measure of dispersion than range
weaknesses of standard deviation
- cannot be used if data set is skewed
- can only be used when data is ordinal or above
negative skew
positive skew
