1.8 - Analysing data Flashcards

(39 cards)

1
Q

What does a histogram show us?

A

How many times each score occurs

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is the y-axis on a histogram?

A

Frequency

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Why are histograms useful?

A

Can assess properties of the distribution of scores

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What are 3 characteristics of a normal distribution?

A

Symmetrical across the mean
Bell-shaped curve
Tails touch infinity line either side

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What are 2 ways in which distributions can deviate from normal?

A

Skew

Kurtosis

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What types of skew are there?

A

Positive

Negative

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

What does a positively skewed graph look like?

A

Tails end at the positive end of the scale

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What does a negatively skewed graph look like?

A

Tails end at the lower end of the scale

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What does skew mean?

A

Lack of symmetry

Most frequent scores are clustered at one end of the scale

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What is kurtosis?

A

Refers to the pointiness of the graph

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What are 3 types of kurtosis?

A

Leptokurtic
Mesokurtic
Platykurtic

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What does a platykurtic graph look like?

A

Flat distribution
Thin tailed
Negative kurtosis

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What does a leptokurtic graph look like?

A

Pointy
Heavy tailed
Positive kurtosis

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What does a mesokurtic graph look like?

A

Relatively normal distribution

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What are 3 common measures of central tendency?

A

Mean
Median
Mode

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is the mode?

A

The score that occurs most frequently in a data set

17
Q

How do you spot the mode on a histogram?

18
Q

What does bimodal mean?

A

Distribution with 2 modes

19
Q

What does multimodal mean?

A

Data sets with more than 2 modes

20
Q

What is the median?

A

The middle score when ranked in order

21
Q

What data can median be used for?

A

Ordinal

Also interval and ratio

22
Q

What data can the mode be used on?

A

Nominal

All types

23
Q

What is the mean?

A

Average of scores

24
Q

What is a disadvantage of the mean?

A

Influenced by extreme scores and affected by skewed distributions

25
What data can the mean be used on?
Interval and ratio
26
What are quartiles?
3 values that split the data into equal quarters
27
What are the 3 quartiles?
1st - lower quartile 2nd - median 3rd - upper quartile
28
How do we calculate the interquartile range?
Upper - lower
29
Advantage of interquartile range
Not affected by extreme scores
30
Disadvantage of interquartile range
Lose a lot of data
31
How do we calculate deviance?
individual score - mean score
32
How do we calculate sum of squared errors?
Square all deviances and add up
33
Why do we square the deviances?
To avoid getting zero or negative numbers as our answer
34
What is the problem with using SS?
Can't compare the total of dispersion to other samples that differ in size
35
How do we calculate the average dispersion (variance)?
Divide SS by degrees of freedom (n-1)
36
How do we get the standard deviation from variance?
Square root the variance
37
What are 3 measures of dispersion?
Sum of squares Standard deviation Variance
38
What would a standard deviation of 0 indicate?
That all the results are the same
39
Is a large or small standard deviation ideal?
The smaller the standard deviation score, the more accurate the data is to the mean