data analysis

• nominal data

  measure of central tendency - mode

  data in categories (finished, fell, started)
• ordinal

  measure of central tendency - median

  data which are ranked or in order (1st 2nd 3rd)
• interval

  measure of central tendency - mean

  precise and measured using units of equal intervals (1m54s, 1m59s, 2m03s)
• range

  measure of dispersion (highest - lowest)
• primary data

  results coming straight from the source, e.g. researchers who are working with participants through experiments, correlations, observations
• secondary data

  results not collected themselves e.g. researchers take data obtained by other psychologists that is relevant to their research, and

  re-analyse this in a different way or for a different purpose
• variance

  considers the difference between each data point and the mean