Experimentation- Presentation of data Flashcards
What do discrete and continuous variables give rise to?
Qualitative, quantitative or ranked data
What are discrete variables?
Discrete variables can only have certain values
What are continuous variables?
Continuous variables have an infinite number of possible values
What is qualitive data?
Data which is subjective and descriptive
What is quantitative data?
Data which can be measured objectively unusually with a numerical value
What is ranked data?
Data transformation in which numerical values are replaced by their rank when data is sorted from lowest to highest
What does the type of variable being investigated have consequences for?
Any graphical display or statistical tests that may be used
How can someone get an idea of how varied data is?
By analysing the data and therefore seeing how consistent the results are
What is the simplest way of telling how varied a data set is?
To work out the range
What is the range?
The largest value minus the smallest value. The range is generally not used when analysing data as it can be distorted by extreme values (outliers)
What is the mean?
The average value for the data (total divided by the number of values)
What is the median?
The middle value for the data
What is the mode?
The most common vale for the data
What are box plots?
Box plots can be used to show variation about the median:
-within the same data set
-between different data sets
A box plot displays the five number summary of a set of data which is the minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile and maximum
What are error bars?
Error bars are graphical representations of the variability of data and used on graphs to indicate the error or uncertainty in a reported measurement. There are various different ways to plot these. Large error bars tend to indicate high variability
