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Descriptive statistics are a way to summarize and describe the important features of a dataset.
Here are some good questions to ask when exploring descriptive statistics:
- What is the range of the data? This question helps you understand how spread out the data is. For example, “What is the range of the temperatures in the dataset?”
- What is the average or mean of the data? This question helps you understand what the typical value is. For example, “What is the average height of the people in the dataset?”
- What is the median of the data? This question helps you understand what the middle value is. For example, “What is the median income of the people in the dataset?”
- What is the mode of the data? This question helps you understand which value appears most frequently. For example, “What is the mode of the people’s favorite color in the dataset?”
- What is the standard deviation of the data? This question helps you understand how much the data varies from the mean. For example, “What is the standard deviation of the test scores in the dataset?”
When exploring descriptive statistics, it’s helpful to begin questions with phrases like “What is,” “How many,” or “What are.” These phrases help you focus on specific pieces of information and guide your exploration of the dataset. For example, “What is the median age of the people in the dataset?” or “How many people in the dataset have a GPA of 3.5 or higher?”
By asking these kinds of questions, you can start to understand the characteristics of the data and gain insights into what it represents. This can help you make more informed decisions and draw accurate conclusions.