Chapter 5: Data Organization and Descriptive Statistics

Question 1

Measures of Central Tendency: definition and examples

Answer 1

Numbers that characterize the “middleness, centralness, averageness, or typicality” of a distribution of scores; mean, median, and mode

Question 2

Measures of Variation: definition and examples

Answer 2

Numbers that characterize the extent to which the scores in a distribution deviate from the middle/central/average/typical score; range, average deviation, standard deviation, variance

Question 3

What is variance?

Answer 3

The “mean squared error”

Question 4

What is standard deviation?

Answer 4

The square root of the variance, also called the “root mean squared error”

Question 5

What are the different characterizations for distributions? (NKS)

Answer 5

Normality- normal or non-normal, Kurtosis- how arched the distribution curve is, Skewness- skewed are non-normal, normal is not skewed