Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics refers the analysis of data that helps describe, show or summarize data in a meaningful way. Descriptive statistics do not, however, allow us to make conclusions beyond the data we have analyzed or reach conclusions regarding any hypotheses we might have made. They are simply a way to describe our data. Descriptive statistics are very important because if we simply presented our raw data it would be hard to visualize what the data was showing, especially if there was a lot of it. Descriptive statistics therefore enables us to present the data in a more meaningful way, which allows simpler interpretation of the data. This book allows common types of descriptive statistics and why they are important for understanding psychological research.