Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry
Third Edition
Learning Objectives
Chapter Summary
This chapter introduces the concepts of data reduction, basic measures of central tendency (mean, median and mode), dispersion (minimum, maximum, range, variance and standard deviation), the z-score and the chi-square test.
A simple data set is provided in the text, along with step-by-step examples of basic calculations for variance, standard deviation, z-score and chi-square.
Chapter Objectives
This chapter will help you:
- Describe the concept of descriptive statistics and provide examples.
- Describe the concept of data reduction and provide examples.
- Explain and calculate the following statistical measures:
- Mean, median, and mode
- Minimum, maximum, range, variance, and standard deviation
- z score
- Chi-square