ABSTRACT
If you know the mean and standard deviation of a distribution of scores, you have enough information to develop a picture of the distribution. Sometimes researchers are interested in describing individual scores within a distribution. Using the mean and the standard deviation, researchers are able to generate a standard score , also called a z score, to help them understand where an individual score falls in relation to other scores in the distribution. Through a process of standardization , researchers are also better able to compare individual scores in the distributions of two separate variables. Standardization is simply a process of converting each score in a distribution to a z score. A z score is a number that indicates how far above or below the mean a given score in the distribution is in standard deviation units. So standardization is simply the process of converting individual raw scores in the distribution into standard deviation units.
