Minitab HELP NOTES - Numeric Summaries of a Data Set
Calculating and Displaying Descriptive Statistics
Step 1: Enter the data
Enter the data set (or sets) you want to summarize into a column (or columns).
Step 2: Request a Numeric Summary
From the Minitab Menu: Stat - Basic Statistics - Display Descriptive (or Store Descriptive
if you want to save your numerical results to columns ~ rare!)
Select the Variable or Variables you want to summarize
Optional: Select a By variable if you want your numerical summaries calculated for each
value of a By variable.
Optional: Select Graphs to view (This is not a commonly used option. To request a graph, use
the Graph menu)
Click on the Statistics button and you see this dialogue:
Here is each choice explained:
1. Mean = Sample mean
2. SE of mean = Standard error of a sample mean = standard deviation divided by the
SQRT(sample size)
3. Standard deviation = Sample standard deviation
4. Variance = Sample variance
5. Coefficient of variation (C.V.) = (Sample mean / Sample standard deviation) * 100
6. Trimmed Mean = 5% Trimmed sample mean (Note: 10% of the data is trimmed; 5% of
the largest and 5% of the smallest values)
7. Sum = Sum of all the data values added together
8. Minimum = Smallest value
9. Maximum = Largest value
10. Range = Maximum minus the minimum
11. N nonmissing = Number of nonmissing data values
12. N missing = Number of missing data values (Note that missing data values are
represented by an asterisk *)
13. N total = Total number of data values
14. Cumulative N = Cumulative number of entries
15. Percent = Percent of observations of a group. The percent will be equal to 100 unless
you use a "By variable".
16. Cumulative percent = Cumulative sum of all the percentages of each group. Only
applies when you select a "By variable".
17. First quartile = 25th percentile (as called the lower quartile)
18. Third quartile = 75th percentile (as called the upper quartile)
19. Interquartile range = Q3 - Q1
20. Sum of squares = SSx = Numerator of sample variance.
21. Skewness = Measure of skew of a data set. Values less than + 0.20 indicate
approximate symmetry; values between + 0.20 and + 0.50 indicate a mild skew; values
between + 0.50 and + 1.00 indicate a strong skew; and values higher than + 1.00
indicate an extreme skew;
22. Kurtosis = Measure of how sharp a distribution is. Values close to 0 indicate normally
peaked data; negative values indicate a distribution that is flatter than normal (or
bimodal or multimodal); positive values indicate a distribution with a sharper (higher)
than normal peak.
23. MSSD = Half the mean of the squared successive differences of a batch of numbers.
Here's an example:
Suppose a random sample of n=50 students (25 male and 25 female) was selected, and one year after
graduating with a degree and finding full time employment, they were asked their annual salary:
Now calculate the following numerical summaries of the sample data:
1. Mean
2. SE of mean
3. Standard deviation
4. Variance
5. Coefficient of variation
6. Trimmed Mean (5% trimmed mean)
7. Sum
8. Minimum
9. Maximum
10. Range
11. N total
12. First quartile
13. Median
14. Third quartile
15. Interquartile range
16. Sum of squares
After selecting Stat - Basic Statistics - Display Descriptive, this is what the output would look like:
And if you wanted to summarize the data set, broken down by "Sex", you would create the following
dialogue by selecting Stat - Basic Statistics - Display Descriptive:
Your session window will output all the numeric summaries requested, broken down by "Male" and
"Female". This is a very useful comparison tool!
End of Minitab Help Notes for Graphing
Data
