Basic Descriptive Statistics (UMAP)

With completion of this module students will be able to: 1) use frequency distributions and histograms to summarize data; 2) calculate means, medians, and modes as measures of central location; 3) decide which measure of central location may be most appropriate in a given instance; and 4) calculate and interpret precentiles.

Table of Contents:

1. THE NEED TO SUMMARIZE DATA - AN EXAMPLE

2. METHODS OF SUMMARIZING DATA
2.1 Frequency Distribution
2.2 Histograms

3. MEASURES OF LOCATION - ANOTHER METHOD OF SUMMARIZING DATA
3.1 The Arithmetic Mean
3.1.1 Computing the mean for raw data
3.1.2 Computing the mean from a frequency distribution
3.1.3 Properties of the mean
3.2 The Median
3.2.1 Computing the median from raw data
3.2.2 Computing the median from a frequency distribution
3.2.3 Properties of the median
3.3 The Mode

4. CHOOSING A MEASURE OF LOCATION

5. PERCENTILES, DECILES AND QUARTILES
5.1 Perecntiles
5.2 Computing Percentiles
5.3 Deciles and Quartiles

6. MODEL EXAM

7. ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

8. ANSWERS TO MODEL EXAM