Geography 300: The Geographer's Craft

Descriptive Statistics

                                                                                           

 

Statistic

 Short Description

Link
N Number of records (or observations)  
Range The difference between the minimum and maximum  
Minimum The smallest record  
Maximum The biggest record  
Sum All the records added together  
Mean The average of the records (sum/N) http://www.robertniles.com/stats/mean.shtml
Std. Error    
Std. The average of the average.  Tells how clustered numbers are around their group mean.  http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml
Variance Total dispersion around the mean.  Not used as much as standard deviation, which is the square root of variance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance
Skewness how much is the data clustered in a symmetrical fashion around the mean. http://www.riskglossary.com/link/skewness.htm
Kurtosis how much of the data is closely clustered around the mean. http://www.riskglossary.com/link/kurtosis.htm
     
     
     
Median   http://www.robertniles.com/stats/median.shtml
     

 

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If you have questions or comments, please contact me at steve.graves@csun.edu