Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that are used to organise and describe quantitative data so that they can be interpreted.

Calculating mean scores

Calculate the mean of the following sets of data.
1. IQ scores: 20, 115, 97, 82, 93, 100, 111, 112, 132, 111=
2. scores on a sleepiness scale: 2, 15, 23, 11, 5, 17, 20, 15, 16, 7=
3. Birth weight of babies in kg: 2.8, 3.3, 2.5, 3.0, 2.9, 4.4, 3.5, 2.7, 3.2, 4.4=

Mean vs Median scores:

1. Give an example that indicates when the mean is not a particularly useful descriptive statistic.
Briefly explain your choice of example.

Measures of central tendency (mean and median)

1. What information is provided by a measure of Central tendency?
2. Give an example that indicates when the moon is not a particularly useful descriptive statistic briefly
explain your choice of example.

Graphical representations of data:

1. Using your digital textbook, copy down the images of the line graph, the frequency distribution, the
bar graph, the histogram, and the frequency polygon.
2. Using your digital textbook copy down a normal distribution and an example of each skewed
distributions.

Standard deviations:

1. A replacement teacher comes to a new school hoping for an easy days work. The teacher is offered
either of two classes, both with a mean IQ score of 100. the standard deviation for one class is 2,
and the standard deviation for the other class is 5. Explain which class the teacher would prefer and
why.

2. Two classes at the same psychology exam. The following descriptive statistics for calculated from
the students results in each class:
class A: mean = 65,%
Class B: mean = 65%.
On the basis of the mean scores alone, what my teachers of these classes conclude about the
knowledge of students in each psychology class? Explain your answer.

3. Suppose the teacher's then calculated the standard deviations for their respective classes and
obtained the following results:
class A: mean = 65%; SD = 1
Class B: mean = 65%, SD = 8
On the basis of this additional information, what conclusions might the teacher's now draw about
the knowledge of the students in each psychology class? Explain your answer.
 4. How would information about the standard deviation be useful to each teacher in terms of future
planning for their classes? What adjustments might each teacher make (if any) as a result of this
information about standard deviation?

Previous Exam Questions

2018 Exam

2016 Exam

2015Exam
Diversity study was conducted to determine the accuracy of participants on a cognitive task with
Increasing blood alcohol concentration (BAC).
The results were plotted on a scatter plot and the trendline obtained is shown below.
a. Use the graph to determine the expected percentage accuracy for someone completing this
cognitive tasks with a BAC of 0.05%. (1 mark)

2014 Exam

A psychologist measure the heart rate of participants watching either a scary movie or a funny movie. The
Mean heart rate of 75 beats per minute was the same for both groups of participants. The standard
deviation for the scary movie group was 3 BPM, while the standard deviation for the funny movie group was
8 BPM. The frequency of heart rate readings among the participants in each group is graphed below.

Describe one difference between the heart rates of the Scary Movie group and the funny movie group.