Distinction between Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics
There are two major parts in statistics. Each of these two segments is important and has a different purpose to solve. These two sub fields are named as descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. How are these two areas different from each other?
Descriptive Statistics
It is the type of statistics that occurs to most of the researchers the moment the word statistics is mentioned to them. As it is understood from the name, the goal here is to describe. The numerical measures are used for the purpose of telling about the features of a certain set of data. This area of statistics has a lot of terminology belonging to it:
- The mean, average, measure of center, median, mode, midrange are some of the specific terminologies used in descriptive statistics.
- The overall data descriptions such as the five number summary
- Measurements such as Skewness and Kurtosis
- The relationship exploration between the paired data through correlation and Regression
- The presentation in the form of graphical representation
Inferential Statistics
In the field of statistics, the beginning is to differentiate between the two group. In this case the population is the collection of the individuals that are of interest in the study. Since it is virtually impossible to do a study and examine each member of the population, we chose a sample and it is s representative subset of the population.
The inferential statistics takes up the study of the statistical sample and from the analysis some generalized conclusions about the population are able to be achieved. Inferential analysis can be divided into two parts:
- The confidence interval gives a range of values for a parameter which is unknown to the population be the measurement of a statistical temple.
- Tests of significance or the hypotheses testing a claim about the population by the analysis of a statistical sample. It can be expressed by the level of significance.
How are Descriptive and Inferential Statistics different?
Descriptive Statistics talks about certain features of a data set. It helps to identify the center of the data we are studying, however when studying descriptive statistics helps in generalizing anything as the identification of Mean and Standard Deviation are exact numbers. The focus of inferential statistics is different. It takes into consideration a sample but gives results that can be generalized. Instead of a specific number, the parameters are in a range and a degree of confidence
