Difference Between Descriptive And Inferential Statistics

782 Words2 Pages

Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

Two of the most useful types of statistics are known as descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics is the term that is used to describe the analysis done to summarize the data from a population in a meaningful way; typically, through graphs and charts. On the other hand, inferential statistics is a way of making generalizations about a population of interest from a small sample size (Descriptive and Inferential Statistics, n.d.).
Probability Theory Probability theory is one of the most well utilized theories of inferential statics. Probability theory is the branch of mathematics that focuses on analyzing the outcome of a random event and is often utilized as relative frequencies in …show more content…

This can be demonstrated by analyzing the data from the Physician’s Reactions case study. This study looked at the effect of how doctors treat overweight patients compared to their average weight counterparts. The mean amount of time doctors indicated that they would spend with overweight patients was 24.73 minutes with a standard deviation of 9.65 (Lane, D., n.d.).
Another way to apply data that has been summarized would be to calculate probability. If one wanted to find out the probability that a doctor would spend over 31minutes with one of the simulated 38 overweight patients, then you could by dividing the number of simulated patients who had a doctor indicate they would spend more than 31 minutes with them by the total number of patients (2/38 = 0.0526 or 5.26%). One can even find the same probability from the same set of data if a normal distribution is assumed (p=0.258) (Lane, D., n.d.).
Standard Normal Distribution One of the more unique ways to summarize a data set is with a standardized (z) score. A z score is a way to indicate how many standard deviations above or below the mean a data point is. An example of this would be a student receiving a z score of -.57 on a test. The student could infer that they had scored below the mean of the class by .57 standard deviations (Lane, D.,

Open Document