Week 3 - Frequency

Central Tendency Shape & Spread Frequency Graphs

Central Tendency
Mean
average

Median
middle number

Mode
number that occurs most often

Shape
Normal Distribution
bell shape

Left Skew (Negative Skew)

outliers to the left

Right Skew (Positive Skew)

outliers to the right

Measuring Spread: Range

A very simple measure of spread is the range. It is simply the difference between the largest and the smallest score. Range = Maximum - Minimum

Measuring Spread: Quartiles of Distribution

First Quartile (Q1) 25% Second Quartile (Q2) 50%, equivalent to the median. Third Quartile (Q3) 75%

Interquartile Range (IQR) Distance between Q1 and Q3.

Frequency Graphs
Stem & Leaf Histogram Box Plot

Examples: Looking at writing scores for a sample of high school students, n=200

Stem & Leaf

Histogram

Box Plot
Q1 and Q3: A central box spans the quartiles. M (Median): A line in the box marks the median. Whiskers: lines (whiskers) extend from the box out to the smallest and largest observations that are not suspected outliers. Outliers: SPSS plots all observations more than 1.5 x IQR outside the central box individually as possible outliers (i.e., unusual data points).

Box Plot

Example Data
ID # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Gender male female male male female female female male female female GPA 2.7 3.4 3.9 3.3 3.4 2.2 2.5 2.5 3.4 3.0