Describing Distribution Shape

Introduction And Definitions Page 1

(Speaker)

When describing the distribution of a population or a sample of data, three characteristics are commonly used:

1. Shape, or whether the distribution is symmetric, or skewed to the left or right.
2. Center, or where the “typical value” lies, and
3. Spread, or how dispersed the data are.

In this activity, we will focus on the relationship between shape and center. In other words, we will show how the shape of a distribution relates to the mean, the median, and the mode.