Psychology - Research Methods - Descriptive Statistics Flashcards
What are measures of central tendency?
mean, median, mode; informs us in the central values of a set of data. Averages
What is the mean?
sum of terms/number of terms
What’s an advantage of the mean?
Most accurate as takes into account all scores
What’s a disadvantage of the mean
Can be distorted by a single extreme value in the set and may not be one of the scores
What is the median?
The middle number in a sorted ascending or descending list
What’s the advantage of the median?
Unaffected by extreme scores unlike the mean
What’s the disadvantages of the median?
Not as sensitive as mean since not all scores are used so can be unrepresentative of data
What is the mode?
The value that appears most frequently in a data set
What are the advantages of the mode?
Unaffected by extreme scores
what are the disadvantages of the mode
Doesn’t tell us anything about other scores in the set
Measures of dispersion
range and standard deviation
What is the range?
The difference between the highest and lowest number in a set
What are the advantages of range
Quick and easy to calculate
What are the disadvantages of range
easily distorted by extreme values
standard deviation
Average amount each score differs from the mean
