Research methods

• Distribution and dispersion

  Key Difference:

  Distribution gives the overall picture of the data and its shape.

  • Looks at measures of central tendency (mean, median and mode)

  Dispersion quantifies how spread out the data is within that distribution.

  • Looks at standard deviation

  In essence:

  Distribution answers "What does the data look like?"

  Dispersion answers "How spread out is the data?
• Normal distribution


  • A bell curve.
  • most people occupy the middle area and the mean, median and mode are all at the same central point at the peak. Many characteristics in a population, for example, height, weight and IQ are normally distributed.
• Skewed Distribution 


  • spread of frequency data that is not symmetrical, where the data clusters to one end.
  • Positive skew = most of the distribution is concentrated towards the left of the graph, resulting in a long tail on the right. the mode remains at the highest point of the peak, the median after, the means is dragged towards the right tale.
  • Negative skew = bulk of the distribtion is concentrated towards the right, resulting in a long tail on the left. The mean is pulled to the left this time, with the mode dissecting the highest peak and the median in the middle
• Distribution

  -

  A) positive

  B) Negative