Descriptive statistics include data distribution and the summary information of the data. Researchers use descriptive statistics to organize and describe the data of a sample or population. The characteristics of the sample are statistics while those of the population are parameters. Descriptive statistics are usually used to describe the characteristics of a sample. The procedure and methods to infer the statistics to parameters are the statistical inference. Descriptive statistics do not include statistical inference.

Though descriptive statistics are usually used to examine the distribution of single variables, they may also be used to measure the relationship of two or more variables. That is, descriptive statistics may refer to either univariate or bivariate relationship. Also, the level of the measurement of a variable, that is, nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio level, can influence the method chosen.

Data Distribution

To describe a set of data effectively, one should...