Describing data - How measures of location and spread compare

7 important questions on Describing data - How measures of location and spread compare

What are the measures of locations? And what are the measures of spread?

  1. Sample mean and median
  2. Standard deviation and interquartile range

Which measures of spread and location are more informative when the data includes extreme observations?

Median and interquartile range.

1. What is the difference between the mean and the median? 2. What is the consequence in a asymmetric dataset?

  1. The median is the middle value of the data, the mean is the center of gravity.
  2. The mean is displaced from the location of the "typical" measurement of the data.
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Why is the sd more sensitive to extreme observations than the mean?

Because it is calculated from the square of deviations.

Which is a better indicator of the spread of the main part of the distribution: the interquartile range or the sd, why?

Interqaurtile range, is less sensitive for extreme observations and non bell-shaped distributions.

When do the mean and median yield similar information?

When the frequency distribution of the measurements is symmetric and unimodal.

What is the most important descriptive statistic for a categorical variable?

Proportion

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