ABSTRACT
Statistics can be extremely complex. However, many of the primary concepts and techniques of statistical analysis are simple and easy to learn. This chapter presents statistics that answer the following questions about a given set of data: How are the cases distributed among the values of each of our variables? What does the typical case look like? How typical is that case? Statistics are powerful tools of analysis that can tell us a great deal about data that we could not otherwise ascertain. But statistics themselves are mindless. It focuses on statistics that summarize the distribution of scores on one variable. These statistics are referred to as univariate statistics. Different univariate statistics are appropriate for variables with different levels of measurement. Although descriptive research may report univariate statistics as findings, researchers who want to test theories will need to move beyond this level of analysis and use statistics that summarize relationships between two variables.
