Variables and Distributions

What you can do with a variable – or rather what it makes sense to do with a variable – in terms of analysis, depends a great deal on how that variable is distributed.  In order to make appropriate use of statistics, you have to have a basic understanding of at least a few terms related to variables and distributions:

• Data Types
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Paired Data & Repeated Measures
• Normality and Parametric Distributions
• Arithmetic, Geometric, and Harmonic Means
• Medians and Quartiles