Engaged Research

Descriptive Statistics.

Introduction

Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a study.  Descriptive statistic data provides simple summaries about the sample and the measures. Together with simple graphics analysis, they form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis of data.  Descriptive statistics help to simplify large amounts of data to better describe quantitative and qualitative research. 

 

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Graphical Summaries

Graphical summaries present diverse aspects of the data, focusing on the value of the data and/or the frequency of the data.  In other words: what values does the data (aka variable) take on and with what frequency? 

 

Graphs summarize and illustrate different  types of data (i.e., categorical, continuous, and ordinal).  Different types of graphical summaries lend  themselves to different types of descriptions and visualizations. 

 

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Click here to learn how to create dynamics charts and graphs in excel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mean 

The average and more specifically-- the sum of a data set divided by the numeb of data (i.e., (80 + 90 + 90 + 100 + 85 + 90) / 6 = 89 1/6).

 

Median

The number in the middle. In order to find the median, you have to put the values in order from lowest to highest, then find the number that is exactly in the middle (bolded): 80 85 90 90 100  since there is an even number of values, the median is between these two, or it is 90. Notice that there is exactly the same number of values before the median as after the median.

 

Mode

The value that occurs most often. In this case (80, 85, 90, 90, 100), there are two 90's, the mode is 90. A set of data can have more than one mode.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Adapted from Creswell, 2007 & Creswell, 2009).