Inferential Versus Descriptive Statistics. Descriptive vs inferential statistics is one such age-old debate. To understand the simple difference between descriptive and inferential statistics all you need to remember is that descriptive statistics summarize your current dataset and inferential statistics aim to draw conclusions about an additional population outside of your dataset. Youll need to account for the deadlines you have for research and development to choose which statistic is more viable for you. Descriptive and inferential statistics are two broad categories in the field of statisticsIn this blog post I show you how both types of statistics are important for different purposes.
Generalizing from our data to another set of cases is the business of inferential statistics which youll be studying in another section. Inferential statistics by contrast allow scientists to take findings from a sample group and generalize them to a larger population. It makes inference about population using data drawn from the population. Descriptive Statistics is a discipline which is concerned with describing the population under study. Several descriptive statistics are often used at one time to give a full picture of the data. It simply describes or organizes data regarding the population under study it does not draw conclusions.
It allows us to compare data make hypothesis and predictions.
Descriptive statistics are used to describe the general conditions and characteristics of the data while inferential statistics are used to draw conclusions for. Inferential statistics involves studying a sample of data. For example we could calculate the mean and standard deviation of the exam marks for the 100 students and this could provide valuable information about this group of 100 students. It helps in organizing analyzing and to present data in a meaningful manner. Descriptive Statistics collects organises analyzes and presents data in a meaningful way. It simply describes or organizes data regarding the population under study it does not draw conclusions.