Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Measures of central tendency
- another type of descriptive statistic for presenting
interval and ratio scales or data from the sample
under study.
- Variables that use interval/ratio scales
- distribution of the data might be of less
interest to the researcher than an overall
summary of the scores.
- form an index or summary numbers that
describe the middle of a distribution of
sample data.
- Mean
- Equal to the sum of all values divided by the number of participants.
- Sensitive to extreme values, also known as outliers
- Not appropriate for data that differs greatly from normal (bell shaped) distribution, as in a
skewed distribution.
- If the mean differs meaningfully from the median it suggests that the
distribution is skewed (not normal).
- Mode
- value that occurs most frequently.
- used for categorical variables or data,
- particularly when categories are not naturally
ranked (nominal).
- Median
- middle value in a ranked list
- point in the distribution above which
and below which 50% of the cases
fall.
- not sensitive to extreme values or outliers. When
- distribution is highly skewed the median provides a
better measure of central tendency
- Middle value
- Measures of disperson
- Are a type of descriptive statistic
- Describe the spread of observations/data about the mean
- Are ways of presenting the data spread or dispersion of data in a sample
- Are used because for some sample data measures of central
tendency do not give a total picture of the data spread