Summary statistics

Summary statistics

In descriptive statistics, summary statistics are used to summarize a set of observations, in order to communicate as much as possible as simply as possible. Statisticians commonly try to describe the observations in
# a measure of location, or central tendency, such as the arithmetic mean, median, mode, or interquartile mean
# a measure of statistical dispersion like the standard deviation, variance, range, or interquartile range, or absolute deviation.
# a measure of the shape of the distribution like skewness or kurtosis

The Gini coefficient was originally developed to measure income inequality, but can be used for other purposes as well.

Example

The following example using R is the standard summary statistics of a randomly sampled normal distribution, with a mean of 0, standard deviation of 1, and a population of 50: > x <- rnorm(n=50, mean=0, sd=1) > summary(x) Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. -1.72700 -0.49650 -0.05157 0.07981 0.67640 2.46700

ee also

*descriptive statistics
*statistical theory
*sufficient statistic


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Summary statistic — Box plot of the Michelson–Morley experiment, showing several summary statistics. In descriptive statistics, summary statistics are used to summarize a set of observations, in order to communicate the largest amount as simply as possible.… …   Wikipedia

  • Statistics New Zealand — Tatauranga Aotearoa Statistics New Zealand logo Agency overview Jurisdiction New Zealand Headquarters …   Wikipedia

  • statistics — /steuh tis tiks/, n. 1. (used with a sing. v.) the science that deals with the collection, classification, analysis, and interpretation of numerical facts or data, and that, by use of mathematical theories of probability, imposes order and… …   Universalium

  • summary — {{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}} noun ADJECTIVE ▪ accurate, apt, clear, cogent (esp. AmE), excellent, fair, good, useful ▪ Is that a fair summary of the situa …   Collocations dictionary

  • Statistics Act — The Statistics Act was an Act by the Canadian government in 1918 which created the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, now called Statistics Canada since 1971. The act was last revised in 1985.The Statistics Act gives Statistics Canada the authority… …   Wikipedia

  • statistics — noun ADJECTIVE ▪ annual ▪ latest ▪ reliable ▪ vital ▪ raw ▪ The raw statistics te …   Collocations dictionary

  • Descriptive statistics — quantitatively describe the main features of a collection of data.[1] Descriptive statistics are distinguished from inferential statistics (or inductive statistics), in that descriptive statistics aim to summarize a data set, rather than use the… …   Wikipedia

  • List of statistics topics — Please add any Wikipedia articles related to statistics that are not already on this list.The Related changes link in the margin of this page (below search) leads to a list of the most recent changes to the articles listed below. To see the most… …   Wikipedia

  • Seven-number summary — In descriptive statistics, the seven number summary is a collection of seven summary statistics, and is a modification or extension of the five number summary. There are two common forms.(Parametric) Seven number summaryThe following numbers are… …   Wikipedia

  • Mode (statistics) — In statistics, the mode is the value that occurs most frequently in a data set or a probability distribution.[1] In some fields, notably education, sample data are often called scores, and the sample mode is known as the modal score.[2] Like the… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”