Presentation of quantitative data

What is a summary table, what is important to note about it, and what do you have to include beneath it

Table summarising the results. Important to note that when tables appear in the results section of a report they are not merely raw scores but have been converted to descriptive statistics. Have to include a summary paragraph beneath that explains the numbers and draws conclusions

What are bar charts and when are they used

A type of graph where the frequency of each variable is represented by the height of the bars. They are used when data is divided into categories - discrete data. Bars are separated to show that we are dealing with separate conditions

What are histograms and when are they used

A type of graph which shows frequency, but unlike a bar chart, the area of the bars (not just the height) represents frequency. The x axis must start at zero and the bars touch each other to show the x axis data is continuous rather than discrete. X axis is made up of equal sized intervals of a single category (e.g. percentage of scores in a maths test broken down into intervals such as 0.9, 10-19, 20-29)

What are scattergrams and when are they used

A type of graph that represents the strength and direction of the relationship between co-variables in correlational analysis

What is a normal distribution

Most people (or items) are located in the middle area of the curve with very few at the extreme ends - the mean, median & mode all occupy the same midpoint of the curve

What are skewed distributions and what do each of the types look like

Distributions that appear to lean to one side or the other

Positive skew: most of the distribution is concentrated towards the left of the graph. Mode remains at the highest point of the peak, median next, mean dragged towards the tail

Negative skew: most of the distribution is concentrated towards the right. Mean is pulled to the left, median next, mode at the highest peak