POLS 3650 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Univariate, Central Tendency

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 3650
• Professor: Edward Koning

Document Summary

Univariate statistics: univariate statistics allow for the analysis of data on a single variable, they help answer questions such as: What is the average size of cities in the prarie provinces: two most important univariate statistics. Measure of central tendency: measures of central tendency give information on the most average value in the cases under study. Knowledge of coding is necessary to interpret the statistic: the level of measurement determines the measurers of central tendency that can be meaningfully be calculated. The mode: mode: the value with the highest frequency. The median: median: value of the middle case. Order all cases from lowest to highest. Add the values of all cases and divide by the total number of cases relative (dis)advantages: while the purpose of each measure of central tendency is more or less the same, their values can differ considerably. Modes give little information when spread is large. Median is misleading when extreme values are common.