KP290 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Kurtosis, Frequency Distribution, Central Tendency
Document Summary
After a study is conducted researchers need to determine if their question was answered. Statistics are objective ways of interpreting observations to help researchers address questions related to description, prediction, association, and explanation of differences. The type of analysis depends on the type of research study. Nominal data refers to categorically discrete and mutually exclusive data. Ordinal data refers to quantities that have a natural ordering or rank. Interval data are also ordered with the intervals between each value being equal. Ratio data are intervals with a natural or absolute zero point. The simplest graph is called a frequency distribution or histogram and involved plotting how many times each score occurs. Histograms are valuable for quickly examining the data distribution and shape. Another type of graph is a frequency polygon where the frequency of scores if represented by dots that are connected by a line. Ideally researchers want to see a symmetrical data distribution which is called a normal distribution.