research methods - descriptive statistics.

Question 1

What is meant by “mode”?

Answer 1

Most frequent occurring score/value within data set.

Question 2

What is meant by “mean”?

Answer 2

The average.

Question 3

What is meant by “median”?

Answer 3

Central value within the data set when the data is arranged highest to lowest.

Question 4

What is meant by “range”?

Answer 4

Difference between the highest and lowest value in data set.

Question 5

What is meant by “standard devation”?

Answer 5

Tells the distance each score is from the mean and calculates how spread out he scores are from the mean.

Question 6

What is the use of measures of central tendency?

Answer 6

• descriptive statistics allows us to summarise quantitative data and summarise patterns such as measures of central tendency.
• inform us about the central value within a data set.
• known as averages
  ↳ tell us about typical value for a set of data.

Question 7

What are the measures of central tendency?

Answer 7

• mean.
• median.
• mode.

Question 8

How is the mean calculated?

Answer 8

1. add up all values in data set.
   
   2. divide total by the total number of values.

Question 9

What are the strengths of the mean?

Answer 9

• most sensitive measure of central tendency.
• includes all the scores/values in data set.
• more representative data.

Question 10

What is a weakness of the mean?

Answer 10

• easily distorted by extreme values.
  ↳ unrepresentative as most values in data set are smaller than mean.

Question 11

How is the mode calculated?

Answer 11

1. most common number in data set.

Question 12

What are the strengths of the mode?

Answer 12

• unaffected by extreme scores/values.
  ↳ identifies most frequent ignoring other scores.
  ➝ more representative.
• ideal when analysing nominal data
  ↳ e.g. finding students favourite topic in psychology.

Question 13

How is the median calculated?

Answer 13

1. order numbers from lowest to highest.
   
   2. use formula (n+1)/2 or find middle value.

Question 14

What are the strengths of the median?

Answer 14

• unaffected by extreme scores/values
  ↳ concerned in middle value ignoring other scores.
  ➝ more representative.
• easy to calculate.

Question 15

What is a weakness of the median?

Answer 15

• does not take all scores/values into account
  ↳ ignores other scores.
  ➝ less sensitive as a measure of central tendency.

Question 16

What is meant by “measure of dispersion”?

Answer 16

How dispersed or spread put the data scores are.

Question 17

What is measure of dispersion?

Answer 17

Type of descriptive statistics involving quantitative analysis.

Question 18

What do measures of dispersion tell us?

Answer 18

How much variability there is within data.

Question 19

What are the measures of dispersion?

Answer 19

• range.
• standard deviation.

Question 20

How is the range calculated?

Answer 20

1. subtract lowest number from highest number.

Question 21

What are the strengths of the range?

Answer 21

• easy to calculate.
• takes in consideration the extreme scores
  ↳ use of highest number.

Question 22

What is a weakness of the range?

Answer 22

• only uses two scores/values from whole data set.

Question 23

What is a low standard deviation like?

Answer 23

• data points tend to be very close to the mean.
• tightly clustered around the mean.
• less spread.
• may be implied that all participants responded in a similar way.

Question 24

What is a high standard deviation like?

Answer 24

• data is spread out over a large range of values.
• greater spread.
• suggest that not all participants were affected by IV in the same way.
• may be anomalous results.

Question 25

What is a strength of standard deviation?

Answer 25

• takes all data points into account
  ↳ more precise measure of dispersion compared to the range.

Question 26

What is a weakness of standard deviation?

Answer 26

• hard and laborious to calculate
  ↳ time-consuming to work out.