Statistics (Psychology)

A way of describing, analyzing, and interpreting data based on mathematical science. Generally, statistics can be dichotomized into descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize and describe data—for example, the range, median, mean, standard deviation— and can be depicted numerically or graphically. Similarly, correlations are used to describe the relation ships between two variables. Inferential statistics are used to draw inferences about a data set and can be used to test hypotheses. ANOVA (analysis of variance), regressions, and data mining are inferential statistics techniques. The critical distinction between descriptive and inferential statistics is that causal relationships cannot be inferred on the basis of descriptive statistics and correlations alone.