Describing Data

Statistics are used to

  1. Describe data
  2. Make inferences about population
  • Once statistics are in, it is helpful to construct frequency distribution
  • There are different ways to graph data
  • Pie chart good for nominal data with limited number of scores
  • Bar graphs are used for nominal or ordinal data, with height of bar representing frequency (categorical)
  • Frequency polygon for internal and ratio-scale data
  • Histogram uses bars to display internal and ratio-scale data since scale values are continuous
    • Can see where or how people responded and can see outliers
  • Not how we present findings in psychology – avoid frequency distributions in lab reports

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