STATISTICS IN

RESEARCH
Submitted To:- Submitted by:-
Pooja Ma’am Vasvi Goel
Msc biotechnology 1st semester
Roll no:-11217614
 ROLE OF STATISTICS
• The role of statistics in research is to function as a tool in
designing research, analysing its data and drawing
conclusions therefrom.
• Classification and tabulation, achieve this objective to
some extent, but we have to go a step further and develop
certain indices or measures to summarise the
collected/classified data.
• There are two major areas of statistics:-
1. Descriptive Statistics:- Descriptive Statistics concerns
with the development of certain indices from the raw data.
2. Inferential Statistics:- Inferential Statistics concerns with
the process of generalisation.
 ROLE OF STATISTICS
• The important statistical measures that are used to
summarise the survey/research data are:
(1) Measures of Central Tendency or Statistical Averages
(2) Measures of Dispersion
(3) Measures of Asymmetry (Skewness)
(4) Measures of Relationship
(5) Other Measures.
MEASURES OF CENTRAL
TENDENCY
 MEAN

• Mean is the simplest and stable measure of central

tendency and is a widely used measure.
• Its chief use consists in summarising the essential
features of a series and in enabling data to be compared.
• For example, marketers often calculate the mean
revenue earned per advertisement so they can understand
how much money their company is making on each ad.
 MEDIAN
• Median is a positional average and is used only in the
context of qualitative phenomena, for example, in
estimating intelligence, etc., which are often encountered
in sociological fields.
• For example, marketers calculate the median revenue
earned per advertisement so they can understand how
well the median ad performs.
• Median is not useful where items need to be assigned
relative importance and weights. It is not frequently used
in sampling statistics.
 MODE
• Mode is the most commonly or frequently occurring
value in a series. The mode in a distribution is that item
around which there is maximum concentration.
• Mode is particularly useful in the study of popular sizes.
• For example, marketers calculate the mode of the type of
ad used (e.g. newspaper, TV, radio, digital) so they can
know which type of ads their company uses most often.
 GEOMETRIC MEAN

• It is defined as the nth root of the product of the values of

n times in a given series.
• The most frequently used application of this average is in
the determination of average per cent of change i.e., it is
often used in the preparation of index numbers or when
we deal in ratios.
 HARMONIC MEAN

• Harmonic mean is defined as the reciprocal of the

average of reciprocals of the values of items of a series.
• Harmonic mean is of limited application, particularly in
cases where time and rate are involved.
• As such it is used in cases like time and motion study
where time is variable and distance constant.
MEASURES OF DISPERSION
 RANGE
• Range is the simplest possible measure of dispersion and
is defined as the difference between the values of the
extreme items of a series.
• The utility of range is that it gives an idea of the
variability very quickly, but the drawback is that range is
affected very greatly by fluctuations of sampling.
• Range is mostly used as a rough measure of variability
and is not considered as an appropriate measure in
serious research studies.
 MEAN DEVIATION
• Mean deviation is the average of difference of the values
of items from some average of the series.
• Mean deviation and its coefficient are used in statistical
studies for judging the variability, and thereby render the
study of central tendency of a series more precise by
throwing light on the typicalness of an average.
• It is a better measure of variability than range as it takes
into consideration the values of all items of a series.
• Mean deviation is used to compute how far the
values in a data set are from the center point.
 STANDARD DEVIATION

• The standard deviation used mostly in research studies

and is regarded as a very satisfactory measure of
dispersion in a series.
• It is less affected by fluctuations of sampling. These
advantages make standard deviation and its coefficient a
very popular measure of the scatteredness of a series.
MEASURES of ASYMMETRY
(Skewness)
• Skewness is, thus, a measure of asymmetry and shows the manner
in which the items are clustered around the average.
• The representation of exam results forms a classic example of
skewed distribution in real life. The distribution of scores obtained
by the students of a class on any particularly difficult exam is
generally positively skewed in nature. This is because due to the
increased difficulty level of the exam, a majority of students tend to
score low, and only a few of them manage to score high. Similarly,
the distribution of scores obtained on an easy test is negatively
skewed in nature because the reduced difficulty level of the exam
helps more students score high, and only a few of them tend to score
low.
 MEASURES of RELATIONSHIP
• Statistical measures which show a relationship between
two or more variables or two or more sets of data.
• For example, whether the number of hours students devote for
studies is somehow related to their family income, to age, to sex
or to similar other factor
• (i) Karl Pearson's coefficient of correlation.
• (ii) Spearman's rank correlation.
• (iii) Scatter diagram.
• Scatter diagram can measure any type of relationship
whether the variables are highly related or not at all related.
 OTHER MEASURES:-
1). Index numbers-
• An index number in statistics is a tool that we generally
use to measure the difference in relative changes from
time to time.
• For example, the cost of goods. We could look at the cost of
each item and compare it to its cost from last year. But that
would mean looking at the cost of millions of items. Or we
could look at the cost of goods index, just one number, to see
whether prices have increased or decreased over the past
year.
2. Time series analysis

• Time series analysis is used for non-stationary data—things that

are constantly fluctuating over time or are affected by time. 
• Industries like finance, retail, and economics frequently use time
series analysis because currency and sales are always changing.
• Analysis of time series is important in context of long term as well as
short term forecasting and is considered a very powerful tool in the
hands of business analysts and researchers.