Descriptive statistics include the numbers, tables, charts, and graphs used to describe, organize, summarize, and present

raw data. Descriptive statistics are most often used to examine: C central tendency (location) of data, i.e. where data tend to fall, as measured by the mean, median, and mode. C dispersion (variability) of data, i.e. how spread out data are, as measured by the variance and its square root, the standard deviation. C skew (symmetry) of data, i.e. how concentrated data are at the low or high end of the scale, as measured by the skew index. C kurtosis (peakedness) of data, i.e. how concentrated data are around a single value, as measured by the kurtosis index.

The subject of multivariate analysis deals with the statistical analysis of the data collected on more than one (response) variable. These variables may be correlated with each other, and their statistical dependence is often taken into account when analyzing such data. In fact, this consideration of statistical dependence makes multivariate analysis somewhat different in approach and considerably more complex than the corresponding univariate analysis, when there is only one response variable under consideration. Response variables under consideration are often described as random variables and since their dependence is one of the things to be accounted for in the analyses, these response variables are often described by their joint probability distribution. This consideration makes the modeling issue relatively manageable and provides a convenient framework for scientic analysis of the data. Multivariate normal distribution is one of the most frequently made distributional assumptions for the analysis of multivariate data