Analysing Quantitative Data

Question 1

What is a descriptive statistic and what are the two types?

Answer 1

Allow us to summarise quantatiative data.

Central tedency (average)
Measure of dispersion (how spread out)

Question 2

What is the mean?

Answer 2

Average set of data statistical

Question 3

Advantage of using mean?

Answer 3

Uses all scores and therefore is most powerful central tedency as we use every result

Question 4

Disadvantages of mean?

Answer 4

Can be distorted by anomalies and is unprepresenatative

Question 5

What is median?

Answer 5

The middle value (rank the data then the middle one). If two same scores, put one in middle.

Question 6

Advantages of using median?

Answer 6

Unaffected by anomalies (if a data has lots of anomalies use median)
Easier to calculated

Question 7

Disadvantages of median?

Answer 7

Only takes the middle value into account (one or two values)

Question 8

What is mode?

Answer 8

Most frequently recurring number

Question 9

Advantages of mode?

Answer 9

Unaffected by extreme anomalies
easier to caluclate

Question 10

Disadvantages of mode

Answer 10

Does not take into account other scores

not useful in small sets of data where theres lots of modes.

Question 11

What is range (methods of dispersion)

Answer 11

Calculated by taking away lowest from highest

large range= lots of spread of data

low range= results more similar

Question 12

What is standard deviation?

Answer 12

Measure of the spread of scores on either side of the mean.

higher standard deviation means more spread of data from mean

lower standard deviation is more reliable, as results closer to result

Question 13

What do the sd graphs look like?

Answer 13

High standard deviation graph (fatter curve, as more spread of data)

low sstandard of deviation: thinner curve, as closer to mean.