Descriptive statistics Flashcards
Identify the two types of descriptive stats
- measures of central tendency
- measures of dispersion
explain what is meant by measures of central tendancy
refers to averages
Explain what is meant by measures of dispersion
How spread out the scores are
identify the 2 measures of dispersion
- range
- standard deviation
Identidy 2 measures of central tendancy
- mean
- median
- mode
explain the mode
most requent score in a data set
strengths of the mode
- not easily affected by outliers
- helpful for discrete data
limitations of the mode
- small data sets may have multiple or even no modes
- doesnt include all values so it is not sensitive
explain what is meant by the median
central position within a data set
strengths of the median
- not affected by outliers
- easy to calculate
limitations of the median
- does not include all the values within the data set
what is the mean ?
mathematical average calculated by adding all the values and then dividing by how many their are
limitation of the mean
easily distorted by outliers
outline what is meant by the range
difference between the highest and lowest values from a data set
strengths of the range
- easy to calculate
limitation of the range
- easily distorted by extreme scores
outline what is meant by the standard deviation
uses all data points to produce a single number - the smaller the value the less spread out the scores are around the mean
strengths of the standard deviation
- detils the dispersion of scores
- includes all values
limitation of the SD
- distorted by extreme values
- SD is more difficult to calculate
