measures of central tendency and dispersion Flashcards
What are descriptive statistics?
Use of graphs, tables and summary statistics to find trends and analyse a set of data, including central tendency.
What is central tendency?
Finding the mean, median ad mode.
What is a mean?
Average number in a set of data after adding the numbers that are present and then diving that number by the amount of numbers in the data.
What is a strength of using a mean?
More representative as it includes all the numbers in the data.
What is a limitation of using a mean?
Unrepresentative when it becomes affected by extreme numbers.
What is a median?
Middle number in a set of data when it is ordered from lowest to highest.
What is a strength of a median?
Easy to calculate and good to use when calculating the frequency.
What is a limitation of using the mode?
Several modes may invalidate the data.
What is a measure of dispersion?
The measure of any spread or variation in a set of scores.
What is an example of measures of dispersion?
Range, standard deviation.
What is the range?
Measure of dispersion that is calculated by taking the lowest value from the largest and then adding one.
What is a strength of using range?
Requires minimal effort as it is simple to complete.
What is a limitation of using range?
Not representative as it only considers small or large numbers.
What is standard deviation?
Measure of dispersion that calculated how much a score deviates from the mean of a set of data.
What is a strength of standard deviation?
Representative of all data as it is a more specific number.
What is a limitation of standard deviation?
Can be influenced easily by extreme numbers.
