SOAN 3120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Abbreviation, Standard Scale, Standard Deviation

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 3120
• Professor: Andrew Hathaway

Document Summary

A density curve is a curve that: o. Is always on or above the horizontal axis: has area exactly 1 underneath it. A density curve describes the overall pattern of a distribution. Measures of center and variability apply to density curves. The median is the point with half the observations on either side o. The median of a density curve is the equal-areas point, the point with half the area under the curve to its left, and the remaining half of the area to its right. The quartiles divide the area under the curve into quarters. A symmetric density curve is exactly symmetric o. The median of a symmetric density curve is therefore at its center. It isn"t always easy to spot the equal-areas point on a skewed curve. If we think of the observations as weights strung out along a thin rod, the mean is the point at which the rod would balance o.