Basic Statistics in Educational

Evaluation: Measures of Central

Tendency and Variability
 Statistics
• In its plural sense, statistics is a set of
numerical data (e.g. vital statistics in a beauty
contest, monthly sales of a company, daily
Peso-Dollar exchange rate)

• In its singular sense, statistics is that branch of

mathematics which deals with the collection,
presentation, analysis and interpretation of
data.
 General use of Statistics

• Statistics aid in decision making

• Provides comparison
• Explains action that has taken place
• Justifies claim or assertion
• Predicts future outcome
• Estimates unknown quantities
• Statistics summarizes data for public use
 Examples of the Role of Statistics
– in the biological and medical sciences, it can help
researchers discover relationships worthy of
further attention
– in the social sciences, it can guide and help
researchers support theories and models that
cannot stand on rationale alone
– in business, a company can use statistics to
forecast sales, design products and produce goods
more efficiently
– in engineering, it can be used to test properties of
various materials for quality control
Statistical Methods of Applied
Statistics

This refers to procedures and

techniques used in the collection,
presentation, analysis and
interpretation of data.
 Descriptive Statistics

– Method concerned with the collection,

description and analysis of a set of data without
drawing conclusions or inferences about a larger
set.
– The main concern is simply to describe the set of
data such that otherwise obscure information is
brought out clearly.
– Conclusions apply only to the data on hand
 Inferential Statistics
• Method concerned with making predictions or
inferences about a larger set of data using
only the information gathered from a subset
of this larger set.
• The main concern is not merely to describe
but actually predict and make inferences
based on the information gathered.
• Conclusions are applicable to a larger set of
data which the data on hand is only a subset
 Population and Sample
• Population is a collection of all the elements
under consideration in a statistical study
• Sample is a part or subset of the population
from which the information is collected.
• Ex. Make a frequency table of the test scores
of 10 students in an algebra quiz of 10 items.

5 4 3 6 6 7 9 10 6 5
 X tally f fx
3 I 1 3
4 I 1 4
5 II 2 10
6 3 18
7 1 7
9 1 9
10 1 10
Total 10
• The raw data is the set of data in its original
form.

• An array is an arrangement of observations

according to their magnitude, either in
increasing or decreasing order.
• 3 4 5 5 6 6 6 7 9 10
 Advantages of ARRAY
• Easier to detect the smallest and largest value
• Easier to find the measure of position
• To compute for the mean from an “array’

X=∑X
n

• To compute for the mean from a f.d. table

X = ∑ fX
n
• The mean of the data is _____
 Measures of Central Tendency
Central Tendency is any single value that is used to identify the “center” or the typical
value of a data set. It is often referred to as the “average.”

Mode
– Most frequently appearing score from the table
• The mode of the data above is ____

Median
• Middlemost score in the data
• Location of the median: n + 1
2
– from the array, the median is ___
– from the table, the median is ___

• Mean
• The sum of a set of scores divided by the total number of scores in the set
• Most commonly used measure of central tendency
 Activity
• Compute for the mean, median, and mode of
the following scores:

18, 12, 16, 16, 19, 16, 14, 16, 14, 19

19, 20, 20, 16, 18, 20, 23, 17, 16, 9
13, 20, 15, 19, 19, 17, 14, 17, 17, 20
19, 14, 16, 14
 Activity
• Compute for the mean, median, and mode of
the following scores:

20, 22, 17, 20, 10, 28, 24, 13, 19, 26

23, 26, 18, 25, 29, 20, 25, 22, 19, 23
17, 25, 19, 17, 18, 16, 31, 25, 16, 18
23, 18, 18, 18