AP PSYCHOLOGY

RESEARCH METHODS THINKING CRITICALLY WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND DESCRIPTION

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
Which type of psychological study uses measures of central tendency and measures of variability?
A
inferential statistics
B
correlational research
C
experiments
D
descriptive statistics
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -Descriptive statistics consists of three basic categories of measures: measures of central tendency, measures of variability (or spread), and frequency distribution.

Detailed explanation-2: -The mean is the most commonly used measure of central tendency or typical value. It is very easy to handle mathematically, simple to calculate, and usually falls in the middle of the data set. To calculate the mean, we simply add up all of the values and divide by the sample size.

Detailed explanation-3: -Central tendency and variation are two measures used in statistics to summarize data. Measure of central tendency shows where the center or middle of the data set is located, whereas measure of variation shows the dispersion among data values.

Detailed explanation-4: -Descriptive statistics are used to organize or summarize a set of data. Examples include percentages, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), measures of dispersion (range, standard deviation, variance), and correlation coefficients.

Detailed explanation-5: -Descriptive and inferential statistics are the two types of statistics used in psychology. Descriptive statistics describes and summarizes a set of data, while inferential statistics allows researchers to draw conclusions from the data that descriptive statistics describes.

There is 1 question to complete.