Descriptive statistics are used to describe a chunk of raw data. There are three main types of descriptive statistics:
- Summary statistics
- Charts
- Tables
Each of these can help us gain a better understanding of existing data.
For example, suppose we have a set of raw data that shows the test scores of 10,000 students in a certain city. We can use descriptive statistics to:
- Calculate the average test score and the standard deviation of test scores.
- Generate a histogram or boxplot to visualize the distribution of test scores.
- Create a frequency table to understand the distribution of test scores.
Using descriptive statistics, we can understand the test scores of the students much more easily compared to just staring at the raw data.
