25
Oct
Descriptive Or Inferential Statistics. Descriptive statistics describe a group of interest. Inferential statistics is the drawing of inferences or conclusion based on a set of observations. We have seen that descriptive statistics provide information about our immediate group of data. Mean median mode variance and standard deviation.
Inferential statistics makes inferences about a larger population. Descriptive statistics is the statistical description of the data set. You can accurately produce numbers for the population without worrying about being off or making any errors but you cant make any conclusions that go beyond the population that you have. These very useful statistics bring together large amounts of data. That focuses on drawing conclusions about the population on the basis of sample analysis and observation. Descriptive statistics are also categorised into four different categories.
They provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures.
Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics are two broad categories in the field of statistics. For example the collection of people in a city using the internet or using Television. Descriptive Statistics describes data for example a chart or graph and inferential. Hence the debate of descriptive vs inferential statistics seems redundant to many. According to Houser 2009 descriptive statistics are the statistical steps that are followed to describe the totality of study. Descriptive statistics is the term given to the analysis of data that helps describe show or summarize data in a meaningful way such that for example patterns might emerge from the data.