Research methods

Subdecks (1)

Cards (18)

  • 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