Discussion: Central Tendency and Variability Understandingdescriptive statistics and their variability is a fundamentalaspect of statistical analysis. On their own, descriptivestatistics tell us how frequently an observation occurs, what isconsidered “average”, and how far data in our sample deviate frombeing “average.” With descriptive statistics, we are able toprovide a summary of characteristics from both large and smalldatasets. In addition to the valuable information they provide ontheir own, measures of central tendency and variability becomeimportant components in many of the statistical tests that we willcover. Therefore, we can think about central tendency andvariability as the cornerstone to the quantitative structure we arebuilding. For this Discussion, you will examine central tendencyand variability based on two separate variables. You will alsoexplore the implications for positive social change based on theresults of the data. To prepare for this Discussion: Review thisweek’s Learning Resources and the Descriptive Statistics mediaprogram. For additional support, review the Skill Builder: VisualDisplays for Categorical Variables and the Skill Builder: VisualDisplays for Continuous Variables, which you can find by navigatingback to your Blackboard Course Home Page. From there, locate theSkill Builder link in the left navigation pane. Review the Chapter4 of the Wagner text and the examples in the SPSS software relatedto central tendency and variability. From the General Social Surveydataset found in this week’s Learning Resources, use the SPSSsoftware and choose one continuous and one categorical variableNote: this dataset will be different from your Assignment dataset).As you review, consider the implications for positive social changebased on the results of your data.

For your continuous variable: 1. Report the mean, median, andmode. 2. What might be the better measure for central tendency?(i.e., mean, median, or mode) and why? 3. Report the standarddeviation. 4. How variable are the data? 5. How would you describethis data? 6. What sort of research question would this variablehelp answer that might inform social change? Post the followinginformation for your categorical variable: 1. A frequencydistribution. 2. An appropriate measure of variation. 3. Howvariable are the data? 4. How would you describe this data? 5. Whatsort of research question would this variable help answer thatmight inform social change?