Summarising Data

Question 1

Researchers can use data summaries to

Answer 1

Describe data characteristics about the sample and communicate important information quickly
Explore data to determine particular patterns or trends prior to formal investigations and generate hypotheses

Question 2

Summarising continuous data

Answer 2

Need to summarise the info for the reader
Point out the patterns in the data that you want reader to notice
2 main elements you want to convey: where is the centre, how spread out are the values

Question 3

Measure of centre: mode

Answer 3

Mode
The most frequent value in the sample
Not commonly used in health

Question 4

Measure of centre: median

Answer 4

The value below which 50% of observations lie and above which 50% of observations lie
The middle value of the observations