Discuss descriptive statistics and what they reveal to a researcher. Give an example of when each type of statistic would be most useful.
What will be an ideal response?
A good answer would include the following key points:
- Descriptive statistics are summaries of measurements, such as the mean, median, and mode. They reveal patterns such as the average score on a measure, the middle score, or the most frequently occurring score. For example, the mean is the average of the scores, whereas the mode is the most frequent score.
- If a researcher wanted to know how a group of respondents performed on a test, she or he would probably examine the mean. However, if there were outliers-students who did very well or very poorly-that would affect the computation of the mean, and the median and mode might be consulted instead.
- In addition to the mode, median, and mean, the standard deviation reveals how scattered or spread out the scores are in the overall distribution. A large standard deviation indicates that there is a lot of variability in the responses of the research participants.
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