How to Calculate Statistics
What is Statistics?
Descriptive statistics summarize and describe the key features of a dataset without making inferences beyond the data. The main measures are central tendency (mean, median, mode) and spread (range, variance, standard deviation).
Step-by-Step Guide
- 1Mean: add all values, divide by the count
- 2Median: sort the data, pick the middle value (or average the two middle values)
- 3Mode: the value that appears most frequently
- 4Standard deviation: measures how spread out values are from the mean
Worked Examples
Input
Dataset: 2, 4, 4, 6, 8
Result
Mean=4.8, Median=4, Mode=4
Range=6, StdDev≈2.04
Input
Dataset: 10, 20, 30, 40
Result
Mean=25, Median=25, No mode
Symmetric dataset — mean=median