Inferential Vs Descriptive Statistics Essay
1. Define index. Why would a researcher wish to construct an index? Give one example of an index.
a. An index is a set of variables combined to measure a more abstract concept. A researcher may wish to construct an index, simple because a single measure may not work. For example the Uniform crime index, which averages the number of crimes per 100K of people, only having the crime of murder or robbery would not be a sufficient measure of the entire phenomena of crime what about rape, homicide etc. that would be adding more variables to the set so that you can measure all different types of crime and get the actual rate of crime.
2. Differentiate between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
a. Descriptive statistics summarizes and describe the data on cases included in the study. You are only describing what’s going on with the data from the case at hand. For example, you interviewed 100 people about which fast food restaurant had the best burger, 50 people said McDonalds, and 10 said Wendy’s, 10 said Hardy’s and 30 said Burger King. Now the obvious conclusion would be that 50% of those survived thought that McDonalds had the best burgers, this is true for this study and is a descriptive statistic. With inferential statistics, you are trying to reach conclusions that extend beyond the current data. Inferential …show more content…
With a mean you would be looking to find the average value, which is simply the sum of all the values divided by the total number of values. For example you have 12 test scores that the total sum is 998, you would divide that by your total number of value (12) you get 83.17 average test scores this is your mean. The median, or middle value, is the center of an ordered list of numbers. So you would have half of the values on one side and half on the other. The median is the middle value. When using the mean as a measurement, extreme values can have a major effect on the mean outcome, in which case researchers are likely to median
a. An index is a set of variables combined to measure a more abstract concept. A researcher may wish to construct an index, simple because a single measure may not work. For example the Uniform crime index, which averages the number of crimes per 100K of people, only having the crime of murder or robbery would not be a sufficient measure of the entire phenomena of crime what about rape, homicide etc. that would be adding more variables to the set so that you can measure all different types of crime and get the actual rate of crime.
2. Differentiate between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
a. Descriptive statistics summarizes and describe the data on cases included in the study. You are only describing what’s going on with the data from the case at hand. For example, you interviewed 100 people about which fast food restaurant had the best burger, 50 people said McDonalds, and 10 said Wendy’s, 10 said Hardy’s and 30 said Burger King. Now the obvious conclusion would be that 50% of those survived thought that McDonalds had the best burgers, this is true for this study and is a descriptive statistic. With inferential statistics, you are trying to reach conclusions that extend beyond the current data. Inferential …show more content…
With a mean you would be looking to find the average value, which is simply the sum of all the values divided by the total number of values. For example you have 12 test scores that the total sum is 998, you would divide that by your total number of value (12) you get 83.17 average test scores this is your mean. The median, or middle value, is the center of an ordered list of numbers. So you would have half of the values on one side and half on the other. The median is the middle value. When using the mean as a measurement, extreme values can have a major effect on the mean outcome, in which case researchers are likely to median