Data Analysis for Decision Making and Marketing Strategies

DATA ANALYSIS FOR DECISION MAKING 1
Data Analysis for Decision Making
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DATA ANALYSIS FOR DECISION MAKING 2
1. GENERAL QUESTIONS
1) Data can be described, among other things, in terms of central tendency and spread.
a) Name at least two common measures used for capturing central tendency.
Mean
Median
Mode
b) Give a one sentence definition of at least two of the measures named in a).
Mean. It can be simply defined as the average of numbers. Arithmetically we achieve mean by
adding up all the values in a data set and dividing the sum by the number of values making the
data set.
Median. Given a data set the, data is arranged in ascending order, the middle number separating
the lower half from the higher half in a data set is called the median. It is simply the middle
value.
Mode. Given a data set Mode is the number that is repeated most.
c) Name at least two common measures used for capturing spread.
Range
Quartiles and Interquartile Range
d) A boxplot can be used to visualize the distribution of an attribute. Explain how to interpret a
boxplot.
A boxplot enables scholars to examine the distributional relationship of data set, further it
enables us to study the level of the scores.

DATA ANALYSIS FOR DECISION MAKING 3
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In the first step, scores are organized. Secondly the sorted data is grouped into four equal
quarters (25% of scores in each subgroup). The four subdivision of the data are referred to as
quartiles scores. The quartile groups are labeled 1 to 4 starting at the lowest.
If a box plot is comparatively short –This means the dataset been analyzed has a great agreement
and is concentrated towards the mean (Thearling, 2017). In case of students exam performance,
the students seems to have scored grades within the same range.
If box plot is comparatively tall – This suggests that the data set under analysis has a great
variation. i.e in case of students exam performance, some may have scored high grades while
others have scored low grades meaning the separation between the two is very wide.
If box plot lower or higher than the other – This means that there exist a variation between the
data set. For instance, the box plot for women may be lower or higher than the men in an election
analysis this could mean more men participated in the elections than women and the vice versa
applies for the higher ended box plot.
When the box plot are unequal in size – Means that similar views are represented in the wider
scale and more variable opinions are held in other parts of the scale which may be narrower
(Shmueli, Bruce, Yahav, Patel, & Lichtendahl, 2017). Further using whiskers to interpret a box
plot, lower longer whisker means that the students average performance is concentrated towards
the lower quartile and the vice versa applies for the longer upper whisker.