Q: Explain what is meant by descriptive statistics?

Definition:

Descriptive statistics is the branch of statistics that involves the summarization, organization
and displaying of data. It is used collect, organize, analyze and interpreting data in order to make
decisions. It includes charts, tables and graphs. Simple calculations range, averages, mean, median,
mode etc. are used. They are simply a way to describe data. There are two general types of statistics
that are used to describe data, measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion.

1) Measures of central tendency

Measures of central tendency are statistical measures. It is a single value that represents the
whole data in a given set. Measures of central tendency conveys the information regarding
the average value of a set of values. It represents the average (central value) which represents
the whole data. There are three types of measures of central tendency, the mean, median and
mode.
1. The Arithmetic Mean 𝒙 ̅
Mean is the most familiar measure of central tendency. Simply mean is an average.
The arithmetic mean is obtained by adding all the values in population and dividing
by number of values. Mean is denoted by 𝑥̅ . N represents the number of values.
Formula for mean:
∑𝒙
𝒙̅ = 𝑵
General formula for mean:
We can obtain formula by mean designating random variable by the capital letter X.
Let X is the random variable. Specific value random variable will be denoted by lower
case letter x. Subscript to the x and letter to the first, second, third and so on. General
value is denoted by 𝑥1 and final value by 𝑥𝑁 . And the Greek letter 𝜇 is for the
population mean. The symbol ∑ is to add all the values from first to final. ∑ is
known as summation sign.
Here,
∑𝑁
𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖
𝜇= 𝑁
The sample mean:
̅
𝒙 is used to designate sample mean and n to indicate the number of values in sample.
The sample mean is expressed as,
∑𝒏
𝒊=𝟏 𝒙=𝒊
𝑥̅ = 𝒏
Example:
Let compute the age of 10 persons in a sample.
Data: 10 persons in sample are 𝑥1 =43,𝑥2 =66,𝑥3 =61,𝑥4 = 64,𝑋5 = 65, 𝑥6 = 38, 𝑋7 =
59, 𝑥8 = 57, 𝑥9 = 57 and 𝑥10 = 50
Solution
∑𝒏
𝒊=𝟏 𝒙=𝟏
̅=
𝒙 𝒏
̅ = 𝟒𝟑+𝟔𝟔+𝟔𝟏+𝟔𝟒+𝟔𝟓+𝟑𝟖+𝟓𝟗+𝟓𝟕+𝟓𝟕+𝟓𝟎
𝑿 𝟏𝟎
̅ =56
𝑿
Properties of Mean:
The arithmetic mean possesses some certain desirable and undesirable properties. A
given set of data possesses only on mean. Mean is easily to understand and compute.
 Extreme values can affect the mean that becomes undesirable measure of central
tendency.
2. Median 𝑴𝒅
Median is a value which divides the value into two equal parts such that the number
of vales is to or greater than median is equal to the number of values equal to or less
than median. To compute median firstly values are arranged in ascending order. In
case of odd values, the median will be the middle value. In case of even values then
there is no single value, instead there are two middle values. In this case median is
taken to be mean of these two middle values arranged in order of their magnitudes.
Formula:
𝑵+𝟏
𝑴𝒅 = ( 𝟐
)
Example:
Find the median ages of subjects represented in the sample.
Median ages are: 64,57,38,43,66,61,50,57,59,65
Solution
Arranging the values in ascending order,
38,43,50,57,59,61,64,65
Two middle values are 57 and 59 then median will be,
57+59
𝑀𝑑 = ( )
2
𝑀𝑑 = 58

Properties of Median:

There is only one median for given set of data. Median is easy to calculate. Median is not
drastically affected by extreme values.

3. Mode 𝑴𝒐

Mode is the highest number of repetition values. If all the values are different, then
there is no mode in that data. A data can possesses more than one mode.

Example:

Let consider a laboratory with 10 employees whose ages are

20,21,20,20,34,22,27,24,27,27.

Data

20,21,20,20,34,22,27,24,27,27

This data of set has two modes 20 and 27.

Data

10,21,33,45,43,53,59,64

This data has no mode because all the values are different.

The mode can also be use for qualitative data. Suppose the patients seen in a mental
health clinic whose diagnosis were mental retardation, organic brain syndrome,
psychosis, neurosis and personality disorder. Here the most repeated diagnosis would
be called the Modal diagnosis.
 Importance of Descriptive statistics

Descriptive statistics are very important because if we simply present the raw data it
would be hard to visualize that what the data is showing, especially if there is a lot of it. Descriptive
statistics therefore enables us to present the data in a more meaningful way, which allows simpler
interpretation of the data.