Descriptive
Biostatistics
http://www.kean.edu/~fosborne/bstat/00home.html
1
, Descriptive Biostatistics
• The best way to work with data is to
summarize and organize them.
• Numbers that have not been
summarized and organized are called
raw data.
2
, Descriptive measures
• A descriptive measure is a single
number that is used to describe a set of
data.
• Descriptive measures include
measures of central tendency and
measures of dispersion.
3
, Measures of Central Tendency
• Central tendency A single number to
serve as a representative value around
which all the numbers in the set tend to
cluster.
• It is also referred to as a “middle”
number of the data.
• Measures of central tendency
– mean
– median
– mode 4