Experiment 3 : Introduction to descriptive statistics and its function.

Objectives:
1. To guide the students regarding descriptive statistics(mean , medium and mode)
2. The Students will acquainted with the basic understanding of applied statistics.
3. The Students will learn how to do statistical analysis and statistical interpretation

Course Outcomes:
1. The will know about the uses of SPSS tool in Business world.
2. The Students will implement the theory of statistical in practical statistical world.
3. To identify different data types used in research Analysis.

Introduction & Procedure:

Descriptive statistics are useful for describing the basic features of data, for example, the summary
statistics for the scale variables and measures of the data. In a research study with large data, these
statistics may help us to manage the data and present it in a summary table. For instance, in a cricket
match, they can help us to manage records of the player and also help us to compare one player’s
records with another player’s records.

Types of Descriptive Statistics

1. Measure of central tendency: The measure of central tendency measures the average value of the
sample. In descriptive statistics, there are two types of averages: the first are the mathematical
averages and the second are the positional averages.

The mathematical averages are of three types: arithmetic mean, geometric mean, and harmonic mean.
The arithmetic mean is the most widely used measure for central tendency; it can be obtained by
adding all the items of the series and dividing this total by the number of items. In descriptive
statistics, the geometric mean is defined as the nth root of the products of all the n values of the
variable. In descriptive statistics, the geometric mean is used when the items in the series are very
large. The harmonic mean is defined as the reciprocal of the item. The harmonic mean is useful in
finding the averages that involve speed, time, price and ratio.

There are two types of positional average: the median and the mode. The median is the average value
of the series in which half the values are less than the median and half the values are greater than the
median. The mode, the second positional average, shows a higher frequency in the series.

2. Measure of dispersion: In descriptive statistics, we can elaborate upon the data further by
measuring the dispersion. Usually the range of the standard deviation and variance is used to measure
the dispersion. In descriptive statistics, range is defined as the difference between the highest and the
lowest value. The standard deviation and variance are usually used to measure the dispersion. Standard
deviation is also called the root mean square deviation. Variance is also used to measure the dispersion,
which can be simply derived from the square of the standard deviation.
As we’ve just described, descriptive statistics are used primarily to summarize the data. SPSS is
statistical software that is used to calculate descriptive statistics. In SPSS, we have to perform the
following steps:
1. From the start menu, click on the “SPSS menu.”
2. Select “descriptive statistics” from the analysis menu. After clicking the descriptive statistics
menu, another menu will appear.
3. From this window, select the variable for which we want to calculate the descriptive statistics
and drag them into the variable window. Click on the option and select the descriptive
statistics. After that, click on the “OK” button. The result window will appear and the
descriptive statistics results table above will appear.
4. The Frequency Command
5. The frequencies command can be used to determine quartiles, percentiles, measures of central
tendency (mean, median, and mode), measures of dispersion (range, standard deviation,
variance, minimum and maximum), measures of kurtosis and skewness, and create histograms.
The command is found at Analyze | Descriptive Statistics | Frequencies (this is shorthand for
clicking on the Analyze menu item at the top of the window, and then clicking on Descriptive
Statistics from the drop down menu, and Frequencies from the pop up menu.):

6. The frequencies dialog box will appear:

7. Select the variable(s) that you want to analyze by clicking on it in the left hand pane of the
frequencies dialog box. Then click on the arrow button to move the variable into the Variables
pane:

8. Be sure to select "Display frequency tables" if you want a frequency distribution. Specify
which statistics you want to perform by clicking on the Statistics button. The Statistics dialog box
will appear:

9. From the statistics dialog box, click on the desired statistics that you want to perform. To
calculate a given percentile, click in the box to the left of percentile(s). Type in the desired
percentile and click on the Add button. When you have selected all the desired statistics (e.g.
mean, median, mode, standard deviation, variance, ragne, etc.), click on the Continue button.
10. Specify which chart you want to display by clicking on the Chart button. The chart dialog box
will appear:

11. Click on the desired chart (usually Histogram) and click on the Continue button. Click on
OK in the frequencies dialog box. The SPSS Output Viewer will appear.
12. In the SPSS Output Viewer, you will see the requested statistics and chart. This is what the
Statistics output looks like. It lists the requested measures of central tendency, measures of
dispersion, measures of skewness and kurtosis, and the quartiles and percentiles.

The output has two columns. The left

column names the statistic and the
right column gives the value of the
statistic. For example, the mean of this
data is 1.26 (since your data set may
be different, you may get a different
value.)
The skewness measure is greater than
0 when the distribution is skewed. The
kurtosis measure is 0 for a normal
distribution. Positive values imply a
leptokurtic distribution, while
negative values imply a platykurtic
distribution.

13. If you scroll down, you will see the frequency distributions.
14. If you scroll down, you will see the histogram (or whatever chart you requested.)