ABSTRACT
Policy analysis often requires using two kinds of statistical techniques: Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The term descriptive statistics includes a wide range of activities. The most common descriptive statistics measure central tendency using sample means, medians, and modes. Descriptive statistics also measure dispersion using ranges, mean absolute differences, variances, standard deviations, and coefficients of variation. Also, classifying data, constructing frequency distributions and histograms, and drawing other kinds of graphs such as line, bar, or pie graphs are in the domain of descriptive statistics 1 .
