Research methods

• Advantages of range

  Quick and easy to work out

  Takes into account all values

  Smaller ranger means that it’s more trustworthy
• Disadvantages of range

  Unrepresentative - easily distorted

  Doesnt show spread of data
• Advantages of Standard Deviation

  All values used - more sensitive than range

  Interpretation of individual scores
• Disadvantages of Standard deviation

  More complex calculation

  Less meaningful if data is not normally distributed
• Advantages of Mode

  Less prone to distorted values

  Gives whole numbers - makes more sense than mean
• Disadvantages of mode


  More than one
• Advantages of mean

  Sensitive and accurate and representative if no anomalies are present
• Disadvantages of mean

  Not representative of there are distorted values
• Advantages median

  Gives representative value when there are extreme values within dataset
• Disadvantages median

  Less sensitive as not all scores are included in final calculation