Child Development 133 
Research Methods in Human Development

Sections 02 & 06
Hembree            Fall, 2009

 

  Descriptive Statistics

I.  Describing and summarizing data (descriptive statistics)

A. Introduction

  • What are statistics (and why should we care)?  

 

 

  • Descriptive vs. Inferential statistics

 

 

   

B. Pictorial representations  

  • frequency distributions

 

 

  • frequency histograms/bar graphs

 

 

  • frequency polygons

 

 

 

C.  Central tendency

·      mean 

 

 

·      median 

 

 

·      mode

   

 

Discussion

 

 

 

 

D. Variance (review) and standard deviation

 

 

 

 

 

E. The normal curve and z scores

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. ACTIVITY - SURVEY DATA

 

 

Send problems, comments or suggestions to: hembrees@csus.edu

California State University, Sacramento
 College of Education
Department of Child Development

Updated: August, 2009