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Data Description

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction or display. Objectives

Summarize data using measures of central

tendency, such as the mean, median, mode,
and midrange.

Describe data using the measures of

variation, such as the range, variance, and
standard deviation.

Identify the position of a data value in a data

set using various measures of position, such
as percentiles, deciles, and quartiles.
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Objectives (contd.)

Use the techniques of exploratory data

analysis, including stem-and-leaf plots,
boxplots, and five number summaries to
discover various aspects of data.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction or display. Introduction

Statistical methods can be used to summarize

data.

Measures of averages are also called measures

of central tendency and include the mean,
median, mode, and midrange.

Measures that determine the spread of data

values are called measures of variation or
measures of dispersion and include the range,
variance, and standard deviation.
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Introduction (contd.)

Measures of position tell where a specific data

value falls within the data set or its relative
position in comparison with other data
values.

The most common measures of position are

percentiles, deciles, and quartiles.

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Introduction (contd.)

The measures of central tendency, variation,

and position are part of what is called
traditional statistics. This type of data is
typically used to confirm conjectures about
the data.

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Introduction (contd.)

Another type of statistics is called exploratory

data analysis. These techniques include the
stem-and-leaf plot, the boxplot, and the fivenumber summary. They can be used to explore
data to see what they show.

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Basic Vocabulary

A statistic is a characteristic or measure

obtained by using the data values from a
sample.

A parameter is a characteristic or measure

obtained by using all the data values for a
specific population.

When the data in a data set is ordered it is

called a data array.
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General Rounding Rule

In statistics the basic

rounding rule is that
when computations
are done in the
calculation, rounding
should not be done
until the final answer
is calculated.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproductionCentral
or display. Tendency: The Mean

The mean, also known as the arithmetic

average, is the sum of the values divided by
the total number of values. Th

Rounding rule: the mean should be rounded

to one more decimal place than occurs in the
raw data.

The type of mean that considers an additional

factor is called the weighted mean.
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Central
Tendency: The Mean (contd.)

One computes the mean by using all the

values of the data.

The mean varies less than the median or

mode when samples are taken from the same
population and all three measures are
computed for these samples.

The mean is used in computing other

statistics, such as variance.
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Central
Tendency: The Mean (contd.)

The mean for the data set is unique, and not

necessarily one of the data values.

The mean cannot be computed for an openended frequency distribution.

The mean is affected by extremely high or low

values and may not be the appropriate
average to use in these situations.

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Central
Tendency: Median and Mode

The median is the halfway point in a data set.

The symbol for the median is MD.

The median is found by arranging the data in

order and selecting the middle point.

The value that occurs most often in a data set

is called the mode.

The mode for grouped data, or the class with

the highest frequency, is the modal class.
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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction
or display.Tendency: The Median
Central

The median is used when one must find the

center of middle value of a data set.

The median is used when one must determine

whether the data values fall into the upper half or
lower half of the distribution.

The median is used to find the average of an openended distribution.

The median is affected less than the mean by

extremely high or extremely low values.
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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproductionCentral
or display. Tendency: The Mode

The mode is used when the most typical case

is desired.

The mode is the easiest average to compute.

The mode can be used when the data are

nominal, such as religious preference, gender,
or political affiliation.

The mode is not always unique. A data set can

have more than one mode, or the mode may
not exist for a data set.
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Central
Tendency: The Midrange

The midrange is defined as the sum of the

lowest and highest values in the data set
divided by 2.

The symbol for midrange is MR.

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display.
CentralorTendency:
The Midrange (contd.)

The midrange is easy to compute.

The midrange gives the midpoint.

The midrange is affected by extremely high or

low values in a data set.

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Distribution Shapes

In a positively skewed or right skewed

distribution, the majority of the data values
fall to the left of the mean and cluster at the
lower end of the distribution.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproductionDistribution
or display.
Shapes (contd.)

In a symmetrical distribution, the data values

are evenly distributed on both sides of the
mean.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproductionDistribution
or display.
Shapes (contd.)

When the majority of the data values fall to

the right of the mean and cluster at the upper
end of the distribution, with the tail to the
left, the distribution is said to be negatively
skewed or left skewed.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction or display. The Range

The range is the highest value minus the

lowest value in a data set.

The symbol R is used for the range.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

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or display. and Standard Deviation
Variance

The variance is the average of the squares of

the distance each value is from the mean. The
symbol for the population variance is 2.

The standard deviation is the square root of

the variance. The symbol for the population
standard deviation is . Rounding rule: The
final answer should be rounded to one more
decimal place than the original data.
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Coefficient of Variation

The coefficient of variation is the standard

deviation divided by the mean. The result is
expressed as a percentage.

The coefficient of variation is used to compare

standard deviations when the units are
different for the two variables being compared.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction
or display. and Standard Deviation
Variance

Variances and standard deviations can be

used to determine the spread of the data. If
the variance or standard deviation is large,
the data are more dispersed. The information
is useful in comparing two or more data sets
to determine which is more variable.

The measures of variance and standard

deviation are used to determine the
consistency of a variable.
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Variance
and Standard Deviation (contd.)

The variance and standard deviation can be

used to estimate the percentage of data values
that fall within a specified interval in a
distribution.

The variance and standard deviation are used

quite often in inferential statistics.

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Chebyshevs Theorem

The proportion of values from a data set that

will fall within k standard deviations of the
mean will be at least 1 1/k2; where k is a
number greater than 1.

This theorem applies to any distribution

regardless of its shape.

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Empirical
Rule for Normal Distributions

Approximately 68% of the data values fall

within one standard deviation of the mean.

Approximately 95% of the data values will fall

within two standard deviations of the mean.

Approximately 99.7% of the data values will

fall within three standard deviations of the
mean.

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Standard Scores

A standard score or z score is used when

direct comparison of raw scores is impossible.

A standard score or z score for a value is

obtained by subtracting the mean from the
value and dividing the result by the standard
deviation.

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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction or display. Percentiles

Percentiles are position measures used in

educational and health-related fields to
indicate the position of an individual in a
group.

Percentiles divide the data set into 100 equal

parts.

The Pth percentile is a value where P % of the

data values are less than or equal to the value.
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Quartiles and Deciles

Quartiles divide the distribution into four

groups. The quartiles are denoted by
Q1, Q2, and Q3. Note that Q1 is the same
as the 25th percentile; Q2 is the same as
the 50th percentile or the median; and
Q3 corresponds to the 75th percentile.

Deciles divide the distribution into 10 groups.

They are denoted by D1, D2, etc.
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Outliers

An outlier is an extremely high or an extremely

low data value when compared with the rest of
the data values.

Outliers can be the result of measurement or

observational error.

When a distribution is normal or bell-shaped,

data values that are beyond three standard
deviations of the mean can be considered
suspected outliers.
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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction orExploratory
display.
Data Analysis

The purpose of exploratory data analysis is to

examine data in order to find out what
information can be discovered. For example:
Are

there any gaps in the data?

Can

any patterns be discerned?

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Stem-and-Leaf Plots

A stem-and-leaf plot is a data plot that uses

part of a data value as the stem and part of
the data value as the leaf to form groups or
classes.

It has the advantage over grouped frequency

distribution of retaining the actual data while
showing them in graphic form.

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Boxplots
and Five-Number Summaries

Boxplots are graphical representations of a fivenumber summary of a data set. The five specific
values that make up a five-number summary are:

The lowest value of data set (minimum)

Q1 (or 25th percentile)

The median (or 50th percentile)

Q3 (or 75th percentile)

The highest value of data set (maximum)

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Summary

Some basic ways to summarize data include

measures of central tendency, measures of
variation or dispersion, and measures of
position.

The three most commonly used measures of

central tendency are the mean, median, and
mode. The midrange is also used to represent
an average.
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Summary (contd.)

The three most commonly used measurements

of variation are the range, variance, and
standard deviation.

The most common measures of position are

percentiles, quartiles, and deciles.

Data values are distributed according to

Chebyshevs theorem and in special cases, the
empirical rule.
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Summary (contd.)

The coefficient of variation is used to describe

the standard deviation in relationship to the
mean.

These methods are commonly called traditional

statistics.

Other methods, such as the stem-and-leaf plot,

the boxplot, and five-number summary, are part
of exploratory data analysis; they are used to
examine data to see what they reveal.
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Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for

reproduction or display. Conclusions

By combining all of these

techniques together, the
student is now able to
collect, organize,
summarize and present
data.

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