descriptive statistics
Median
Midpoint Adv: used for sets of data that have an outlier Outliers do not impact the median as they do the mean (Ex: billionaire's wealth wouldn't influence median)
standard deviation
Most commonly used measure of variability
Outliers are visible on
graphs & data analysis outputs
A positively skewed distribution
has extreme scores at the higher end of the distribution.
A negatively skewed distribution
has extreme scores at the lower end of the distribution.
Calculation of variance shows
how far each score is from the mean
percentile ranks
indicate the percentage of scores that fall at or below a given score
Always report the
mean
3 measures of central tendency
mean, median, mode
Why would it be helpful to find out percentages in addition to the frequency?
Easier to visualize (fraction/percentages of whole) Serves as a "standard metric" to compare groups of different sizes
A t-score is used when sample size is less than
30
A score that represents the mean has a z-score of
0
Two Main Types of measures of relative position
1. Percentile ranks 2. standard scores
Mean
Arithmetic average of a set of scores Best for sets of data that do NOT have an outlier(s) extreme scores Becomes skewed (shifted) because of outlier/extreme scores Ex: a city's mean income will be influenced by a billionaire Advantages: useful when comparing sets of data Disadvantages: affected by extreme values (outliers)
descriptive statistics
Can calculate statistics by hand or use assistance of statistical programs Excel, SPSS, and many other programs exist Will explore SPSS in ED600 You're NOT responsible for any equations or doing statistics by hand Should just be able to understand the concepts behind the statistics
Types of descriptive statistics
Frequencies Measures of central tendency Measures of variability/dispersion Measures of relative position Measures of relationship
Measures of Relationship
Indicate degree to which two sets of scores are related
Measures of Relative Position
Indicate where a score falls in the distribution relative to all other scores
Measures of Variability
Provide an index of the degree of spread in a distribution of scores
3 types of measures of variability
Range Variance Standard deviation
Mode
The value that gets repeated most Extreme values do not impact mode Not as popular or useful as mean and median
Normal Distribution
When large amount of data gathered bell-shaped and symmetrical Fifty percent of the scores are above the mean and 50% are below the mean The mean, median, and mode have the same value Most scores are near the mean
Express different scores on a common scale
allows for norm-referenced scoring and reporting of individual's scores
Variance:
amount of spread among scores
Range:
difference between the highest and lowest score
Pearson r takes into account score
every
Standard Deviation (SD):
measure of how spread out numbers (for a group as a whole) are around the mean compared to the norm
If you have major outliers report
median & explain about outlier(s)
Smaller standard deviations indicate data is
more concentrated around the mean
Larger standard deviations indicate
more dispersion
Skewness
not symmetrical Mean, median, and mode are not same value
Frequency:
refers to the number of times something occurs
Pearson r is the most stable measure of
relationship
A standard score
reports how many standard deviations a given score is from the mean of a distribution
Kurtosis
shape of distribution normal Peaked flat
When a distribution is not normally distributed, it is said to be
skewed
Pearson r is
statistic used to calculate relationship for interval or ratio data
A z-score (most common standard score) is directly tied to
the standard deviation