Descriptive Statistics

Data are initially located on the vector display and can be Contracted or Expanded. Only the upper left part of the large data sets is displayed on the vector workspace. The large data sets can be viewed in its entirety by clicking the Vector Module command.

can be annotated by over twenty descriptive statistics that can be selected by clicking the Descriptive Statistics command.

Descriptive statistics can be selected by clicking on the white-maroon square toggles. The special toggle is the Standard Variance command, which in addition to its white-maroon toggle button also necessitates the selection of the Standardizing Variable. The display of the Standard Variance can be also turned off by the right-click on the Descriptive Statistics command.

Comprehensive list of descriptive statistics can be obtained by clicking the Descriptive Statistics command under the Analysis I menu.

Metastatistics can be calculated on the data elements, on the descriptive statistics, on elements of a symmetric matrix, and on elements of a correlation matrix. Click on (Data, Random Data)

click on the Normally Distributed Real Numbers

select Distribution with M = 0 and SD = 1, specify the number of rows and columns of the generated matrix of normally distributed random real numbers (for the example 600, 8), and click the Accept command.

We expect that the means will approximate zero and that standard deviation will approximate one. Select (Analysis I, Metastatistics)

and click on the Descriptive Statistics command.

The mean of the means is -.005 and standard deviations approximate one.

There is another, obtuse way how to calculate metastatistics. Select (Transfers, Descriptors to the scalar module)

Select the Arithmetic Mean and click the Accept command.

Click the Select All and Accept commands. Means of all variables will be transferred to the scalar module.

In the scalar module, you may drag the means to the calculator to compute the metastatistics. However the quicker way is to click on the (Transfers, Scalars to a variable) commands

and to observe that the value of the metastatistics for the means (-.005) is the same as the value obtained directly by clicking the Metastatistics command.