Descriptive Analysis

Descriptive Analysis

Descriptive statistics - how to summarize data with numbers or plots

Summaries

• Simple summaries - Summary Statistics
• Exploratory Analysis - mostly visual analysis - simple-to-understand graphs.

Univariate Analysis

Univariate analysis is describing the distribution of a single variable

• central tendency (e.g. the mean, median, and mode)
• dispersion, e.g.
  • the range and quantiles of the data set
  • measures of spread variance and standard deviation
• the shape of the distribution
  • as skewness and kurtosis.
  • graphical or tabular format, including histograms and stem-and-leaf display.

Bivariate Analysis

Descriptive statistics may be used to describe the relationship between pairs of variables

In this case, descriptive statistics include:

• Cross-Tabulations and Contingency Tables
• Graphical representation via Scatter Plots and other Plots
• Quantitative measures of dependence
• Descriptions of conditional distributions

Sources

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_statistics
• Descriptive Statistics lecture
• Data Mining (UFRT)