Central Tendency and Variability: What You Need to Know

Age Variable Descriptive Statistics 

Explanation: 

Using the procedure documented by Wagner (2020), the above table shows the descriptive statistics SPSS output for Age (Q1). From the summary, from the total 10,250 items/subjects, the mean age is 37.01 years ( M= 37.01 , SD= 14.54). Secondly, across the sample ( N= 10250), the summary shows the youngest person is 18 years (minimum), and the oldest person is 99 years (maximum). Lastly, skewness is key for showing data distortion, i.e., normal distribution or asymmetry (Frankfort-Nachmias, Leon-Guerrero & Davis, 2020). Hence, from the table, skewness statistic=0.888, and since statistic=0 shows the normal, this data is not normally distributed.

A question Age (Q1) variable can help answer is ¨What is the age distribution within the community? With this information, economic and state planners can plan on society measures towards ensuring member's wellness. From the skewness value (0.888), the data is not normally distributed, meaning one side has more persons based on age, helpful in economic planning.

Education Category Variable Descriptive Statistics 

Explanation: 

In obtaining descriptive statistics for categorical data, there is relying on frequency in the Analyze tab (Wagner, 2020) for the education category. From the summary above, those with No formal education were 2105 (20.4%), while those in Primary were 3261 (31.6%), Secondary 3641 (35.3%) forming the significant proportion, while those in Post-secondary were 1290 (12.5%). Lastly, skewness helps show normal distribution or asymmetry (Frankfort-Nachmias, Leon-Guerrero & Davis, 2020); it can be seen that the education category data has a normal distribution. That is, since 0 skewness depicts normal distribution, a value of Skewness = 0.007, in this case, is very closer to zero (0), meaning the education category data is normally distributed (bell-shaped).

A research question Education Category variable would help answer is ¨How does academic performance vary across ages (Q1)? Hence, the results help policymakers adopt measures that align with society's academic performance distribution, e.g., resource allocation.

References

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., Leon-Guerrero, A., & Davis, G. (2020). Social statistics for a diverse society (9th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wagner, III, W. E. (2020). Using IBM® SPSS® statistics for research methods and social science statistics (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.