Understanding Central Tendency and Dispersion

These flashcards cover key concepts related to descriptive statistics, central tendency, and dispersion, aimed at helping students understand and remember important definitions and measures.

Descriptive Statistics

Numbers used to summarize information about data.

Central Tendency

Measures that identify the central location of the data, including mean, median, and mode.

Mean

The average value of a data set, calculated as the sum of all values divided by the number of values.

Median

The middle value that separates the higher half from the lower half of a data set.

Mode

The value that occurs most frequently in a data set.

Dispersion

Describes how much the values in a data set are spread out.

Range

The difference between the maximum and minimum values in a dataset.

Variance

A measure of how widely the values are spread out in relation to the mean.

Standard Deviation

The square root of the variance, representing the average distance of each data point from the mean.

Outliers

Data points that deviate significantly from other observations, potentially skewing the results.

Ecological Fallacy

Making inferences about individuals based on aggregate data.

Exception Fallacy

Making inferences about a group based on knowledge of a few exceptional individuals.