Descriptive Statistics

EDGR 601 Educational Research

Lisa McGuire
Concordia University
March 10, 2014
Topic 50
Which average is defined as the most frequently occurring score?
The most frequently used average occurring score is the mode because it is the number that
occurs most often in a set of data.
Which average is defined as the balance point in a distribution?
The average as the balance point in a distribution is the mean.
Which average is defined as the middle score?
The average defined as the middle score is the median.
What is the formal definition of the mean?
The formal definition of mean is the value around which the deviations sums to zero.
How is the mean calculated?
The mean is calculated by summing up a set of scores then dividing by the number of scores.












Topic 51
Which average is usually reported when the standard deviation is reported?
The average that is usually used when standard deviations are reported is the mean.
What is meant by the term variability?
Variability is the amount by which participants vary or differ from each other.
Give an example of two groups that have the same mean but different standard deviations.
Group A scores: 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30------------Mean: 15.00 S= 5
Group B scores: 14, 14, 14, 15, 16, 16, 16----------Mean: 15.00 S=0.93
If all individuals in a group have the same score, what is the value of the standard deviation
for the scores?
If all the individuals have the same score, the value of the standard deviation is zero because
there is no variability or differences among the participants.
What percentage of the participants lies within one standard deviation unit of the mean
(that is, on both sides of the mean) in a normal distribution?
The percentage of the participants that lies within one standard deviation unit of the mean in a
normal distribution is 68%.














Topic 52
If the median for a group of participants is 25.00, what percentage of the participants has
scores above a score of 25.00?
If the median for a group of participants is 25.00, then the percentage of participants with scores
above a score of 25.00 is 12.5%.
Should the mean or the median be used with ordinal data?
The median should be used with ordinal data averages because the median puts data in order
from high to low but, do not have equal intervals among them.
How do you calculate the range of a set of scores?
After placing the data in order from the lowest score to the highest score, the range is calculated
by subtracting the highest score from the lowest score.
Is the range or the interquartile range a more reliable score?
The more reliable score is the interquartile range because the range has a more extreme score
thus causing many errors and making it unreliable. Researchers use interquartile range because
it is the range between two middle quarters.
The interquartile range is the range of what?
The interquartile range is the range between the middle two quarters or the range of the middle
50% of the participants.













Reference
Patten, M. (n.d.) Understanding research methods: an overview of the essentials. (Sixth Edition).
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