NEW SEGMENT

There are going to be 3

students who will “Show and
Tell” every week. Students
will be picked at random.
Bring something interesting
to the class and say anything
about it.
 REVIEW: CHARADES

 Split the class into 2 groups

 Act out a word from my list (no
speaking allowed)
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Professor Ted Mosby
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

 The first step in looking at

data is to describe the data
at hand in some concise
way.
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

 Graphic displays illustrate the

important role of descriptive
statistics, which is to quickly
display data to give the
researcher a clue as to the
principal trends in the data
and suggest hints as to where
a more detailed look at the
data, using the methods of
inferential statistics, might
be worthwhile.
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

 Descriptive statistics are also

crucially important in
conveying the final results of
studies in written
publications.
 What makes a good graphic
or numeric display? The main
guideline is that the material
should be as self-contained
as possible and should be
understandable without
reading the text
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

 One type of measure useful

for summarizing data defines
the center, or middle of the
sample. These type of
measures are called
“Measures of Central
Tendency.”
 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

 Arithmetic Mean
 is the sum of all the observations
divided by the number of
observations. The arithmetic mean
is, in general, a very natural
measure of location. One of its main
limitations, however, is that it is
oversensitive to extreme values. In
this instance, it may not be
representative of the location of the
great majorityof sample points.
 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

 Median
 The median is simply
the middle number of a set. Put
the numbers in order and look
for one in the middle. If there is
no middle number, add the two
in the center and divide by 2.
 MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

 Mode
 is the most frequently occurring
value among all the observations
in a sample.
WHEN TO USE THE MEAN, MEDIAN, OR
MODE
Type of variable Best measure of central tendency
Nominal Mode
Ordinal Median
Interval/ratio (not skewed) Mean
Interval/ration (skewed) Median
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 It is usually used in conjunction with

measures of central tendency such as
the mean or the median to provide an
overall description of a set of data
 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO MEASURE THE
SPREAD OF DATA?
 The main reason is its relationship with
the measures of central tendency
 The measure of spread gives us an idea
of how well the mean, for example,
represents the data. If the spread of
values in the data set is large, the
mean is not as representative of the
data as if the spread of data is small.
This is because a large spread indicates
that there are probably large
differences between individual scores.
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 Range
 The range is the difference between
the highest and lowest scores in a data
set and is the simplest measure of
spread. So we calculate range as:
 Range = maximum value - minimum
value
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 Range
 The range is useful for showing
the spread within a dataset and
for comparing the spread
between similar datasets.
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 Interquartile Range
 The IQR can be used as a measure of
how spread-out the values are.
 The IQR tells how spread out the
"middle" values are; it can also be
used to tell when some of the other
values are "too far" from the central
value. These "too far away" points are
called "outliers", because they "lie
outside" the range in which we expect
them.
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 Interquartile Range
 The IQR is the length of the box in
your box-and-whisker plot. An
outlier is any value that lies more
than one and a half times the length
of the box from either end of the
box.
CREATING A BOX AND WHISKER PLOT
MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION
 MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION

 Standard Deviation
 The standard deviation is a measure that
summarises the amount by which every value
within a dataset varies from the mean.
Effectively it indicates how tightly the values in
the dataset are bunched around the mean
value.
 When the values in a dataset are pretty tightly
bunched together the standard deviation is
small. When the values are spread apart the
standard deviation will be relatively large.
MEASURES OF SPREAD/DISPERSION
 WATERMELON
You will be tasked to describe
something but you have to
use “Watermelon” to replace
the word you are describing.
 LET’S COLLECT SOME DEMOGRAPHIC
DATA
 Give me your:  Political Views  Waist Circumference
 Gender Identity  Languages spoken  Hip Circumference
 Age  Type of House  Leisure Activities
 Ethnicity  Type of Community  Talents
 Location  Typical Sleep Time  Favorite Genre of Music
 Household Income  No. of Hours of Sleep  Favorite Genre of Movies
 No. of Family Members  Height  Frequency of Bathing
 Religion  Weight  Frequency of Brushing
 Tobacco Use  Blood Pressure Teeth
 Alcohol Use  Temperature  Favorite Color
 Food Preference  Heart Rate/Pulse Rate  Dog Person or Cat Person
 No. of Meals per Day  Breathing Rate