Descriptive Statistics Measures of Central Tendency a.

Arithmetic Mean > Colloquially referred to as the average

x > It is denoted by

> It is the sum of all the observations divided by the number of observations > It is the most widely used measure of central location > However, it is highly sensitive to extreme values. > In cases of extreme values, the mean may not indicate the true center of the sample.

b. Median > It is the (n + 1)/2 largest observation if n is odd; the middlemost score > It is the average of the n/2 and (n/2 +1)th largest observation if n is even; the sum of the two middlemost scores divided by two.

c. Mode > The mode is the most frequently occurring value among all the observations in a sample

d. Standard deviation

> It measures the difference between the individual sample points and the arithmetic mean. > It is equal to the square root of the sample variance > Sample variance is the sum of the squares of the deviation from the mean of each data point divided by the sample population minus 1

e. Coefficient of variation > It is the ratio between the standard deviation and mean multiplied by 100 > It is most useful in comparing the variability of several different samples, each with different arithmetic means

If a distribution is symmetric, then the relative position of the points on each side of the sample median will be the same.

If a distribution is positively skewed (skewed to the right), then points above the median will tend to be farther from the median in absolute value than points below the median.

If a distribution is negatively skewed (or skewed to the left), then points below the median will tend to be farther from the median in absolute value than points above the median.

In many samples the relationship between arithmetic mean and the sample median can be used to assess the symmetry of a distribution. In particular, for symmetric distributions, the

arithmetic mean will tend to be the same as the median. For positively skewed distributions, the arithmetic mean will tend to be larger than the median; for negatively skewed distributions, the arithmetic mean will tend to be smaller than the median.

Case 1

The data in Table 1 (excel file sheet 1) are a sample of cholesterol levels taken from 24 hospital employees who were on a standard diet and who agreed to adopt a vegetarian diet for 1 month. Serum cholesterol measurements were made before adopting the diet 1 month after.

1. Compute the mean change in cholesterol. 2. Compute the standard deviation of the change in cholesterol levels. 3. Compute the median change in cholesterol
4.

Construct a line graph for the cholesterol changes

5. Comment on the symmetry of the distribution of change scores based on your answers to 1 and 4. 6. Some investigators feel that the effects of diet on cholesterol are more evident in people with high rather than low cholesterol levels. If you split the data in Table 1 according to whether baseline cholesterol is above or below the median, can you comment on this issue?

Case 2

The data in excel file sheet 4 shows the scores in a licensure exam of 40 nursing graduates from University A. Using descriptive statistics determine whether the scores of the nursing graduates from said university is within the national average of 60 with a standard deviation of 17. Interpret your results.