Applied Biostatistics

Skewness
And
Kurtosis
 Skewness and Kurtosis
Skewness

“It is defined as the departure from Symmetry”

 Skewness and Kurtosis
Measures of Skewness

Coefficient of Skewness help us to measure

amount of the departure from symmetry.

It is denoted by

Karl Pearson (1857 – 1936)

 Skewness and Kurtosis
Measures of Skewness
Since we know that mode is sometimes ill defined
to be located by simple methods.

It is replaced by its equivalent for moderately

skewed distributions

Arthur Lyon Bowley (1869 – 1957)

Skewness and Kurtosis

Mean = 30.58 N
Median = 31.10 N

Since Median > Mean

There is no most frequent

value hence there is “No
Mode”.
Therefore we can not use
the formula for skewness
that contains Mode.
Skewness and Kurtosis
Skewness and Kurtosis
Skewness and Kurtosis

Measures of Skewness
Qualitative Variables:

There is not need to

measure coefficient of
skewness

Quantitative Variables

• Frequency Histogram
• Frequency Curve
• Comparison of Mean,
Median and Mode.
• Coefficients of Skewness
Skewness and Kurtosis
Kurtosis

Peakedness of the data

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/File:Kurtosis1.jpg
Skewness and Kurtosis
Measures of Kurtosis
Skewness and Kurtosis
Measures of Kurtosis
Skewness and Kurtosis
Example Kurtosis
Skewness and Kurtosis

While conducting the data

analysis we do not rely on
only one measure of
skewness, we do use
• Graphical
• Numerical Measures
• We first observe them
using mean, median and
mode.
• We also use various
END measures of Skewness.
• Manual calculations using
formula for kurtosis is
usually not necessary.
packages provide this
information. As a part of
descriptive statistics.
Applied Biostatistics

Box
&
Whisker Plot
Box and Whisker Plot

Box and Whisker Plot

• A useful visual device for

communicating the
information contained in
a dataset.

• Sometimes simply called

“Box Plot”.

• Makes use of the

quartiles.
 Box and Whisker Plot
Box and Whisker Plot

http://www.elsevier.es/pt-revista-educacion-quimica-78-articulo-graphical-representation-chemical-periodicity-
main-S0187893X16300106
 Box and Whisker Plot
Box and Whisker Plot
Step 1: Represent the variable of interest on the horizontal axis
Step 2: Draw a box in the space above the horizontal axis in
such a way that the left end of the box aligns with the
lower Quartile i.e. Q1 and the right end of the box
aligns with the upper quartile i.e. Q3.
Step 3: Divide the box into two parts by a vertical line that
aligns with the median i.e. Q2.
Step 4: Draw a horizontal line called whisker from the left end
of the box to a point that aligns with the smallest
measurement in the data set.
Step 5: Draw another horizontal line or whisker from the right
end of the box to a point that aligns with the largest
measurement in the data set.
Box and Whisker Plot
Box and Whisker Plot
 Box and Whisker Plot

http://www.elsevier.es/pt-revista-educacion-quimica-78-articulo-graphical-representation-chemical-periodicity-
main-S0187893X16300106
 Box and Whisker Plot
Shapes from Box and Whisker Plot

http://www.elsevier.es/pt-revista-educacion-quimica-78-articulo-graphical-representation-chemical-periodicity-
main-S0187893X16300106
 Box and Whisker Plot

Box and Whisker plot

provides a very quick
summary of our quantitative
variable irrespective of it to be
Symmetric or Skewed.

Box and Whisker plot is

drawn for quantitative
variables only.
END
If we want to see the
distribution of a quantitative
variable across different
levels of a qualitative variable
then Box plots provides a
good and quick summary.