Descriptive Statistics Flashcards
What are descriptive statistics?
The use of graphs, tables and summery statistics to identify general trends and patterns in a data set
What are the measures of central tendency? List 3
A descriptive statistic that provides information about an ‘average’ value for a data set (mean, median and mode)
What is the mean? How do you calculate it?
The arithmetic average of all of a data set that takes all of the data into account- add everything and divide by how many there are
What is the median? How do you calculate it?
The middle value of a data set- put them in ascending order then select the middle value
What is the mode? How do you calculate it?
The most frequent occurring value in a data set- pick the number that comes up the most
What are measures of dispersion? What are they?
A descriptive statistic that provides information about how spread out a set of data is. (Range and Standard deviation)
What is the range? How do you calculate it?
The difference between the highest and lowest number in a data set. Take the smallest number away from the biggest and add one
What is standard deviation?
It assesses the spread of data around the mean by telling us how much scores deviate from the mean
What is a strength of using the mean?
Most sensitive measures of central tendency- takes account of exact distance between all the values if the data
What is a limitation of using the mean?
Easily distorted by extreme values- misrepresentative of the data as a whole
What is two strengths of using the Median?
-Not affected by extreme scores
- easy to calculate
What is a limitation of using the median?
Less sensitive than the mean- not all items are included in the final calculation
What is a strength of using the mode?
More useful for nominal data
What is a limitation of using the mode?
Not always representative of the whole data
What is a strength of using the range?
Easy to calculate
