Descriptive Statistics Overview

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to descriptive statistics, central tendency, frequency, and variability.

Descriptive Statistics

A set of statistical techniques used to summarize and describe the main features of data.

Central Tendency

A measure that represents the center or typical value of a dataset, commonly calculated using mean, median, and mode.

Mean

The average of a dataset, calculated by dividing the sum of all scores by the number of scores.

Median

The middle score in a dataset when scores are arranged in ascending order; divides the dataset into two equal halves.

Mode

The value or score that appears most frequently in a dataset.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest values in a dataset.

Standard Deviation

A measure of variability that indicates the average distance of scores from the mean.

Frequency Distribution

A summary of how often different scores occur in a dataset.

Percentiles

Values below which a certain percentage of data falls; for example, the 50th percentile is the median.

Cumulative Frequency

The running total of frequencies in a frequency distribution, showing the total number of scores at or below each score.

Inter-Quartile Range

The range of the middle 50% of a dataset, calculated as the 75th percentile minus the 25th percentile.

Outliers

Scores that are significantly higher or lower than most of the data in a distribution.

Variance

A measure of variability that represents the average of the squared deviations from the mean.