| A | B |
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| bar chart | A series of vertical or horizontal bars with the length of a bar representing the percentage frequency of a category of a nominal/ordinal variable. Bar charts are especially useful for conveying a sense of competition among categories. |
| deviant score or outlier | A score that is markedly different from the others in the score distribution. |
| frequency histogram | A 90-degree plot presenting the scores of an interval/ ratio variable along the horizontal axis and the frequency of each score in a column parallel to the vertical axis. |
| frequency polygon (line graph) | A 90-degree plot with the interval/ratio score plotted on the horizontal axis and score frequencies depicted by the heights of dots located above scores and connected by straight lines. |
| pie chart | A circle that is dissected (or sliced) from its center point with each slice representing the proportional frequency of a category of a nominal/ordinal variable. It is especially useful for conveying a sense of fairness, relative size, or inequality among categories. |
| normal distribution | A frequency distribution curve in which the mean, median, and mode of a variable are equal to one another and the distribution of scores is bell-shaped. |
| central tendency statistic | A statistic that provides an estimate of the typical, usual, or normal score found in a distribution of raw scores. |
| frequency distribution curve | A substitute for a frequency histogram or polygon in which we replace these graphs with a smooth curve. The area under the curve represents the total number of subjects in the population and is equal to a proportion of 1.00 or a percentage of 100 percent. |
| skewed distribution | A frequency distribution curve in which the mean, median, and mode of the variable are unequal and many of the subjects have extremely high or low scores. |
| the mean | The sum of all scores in a distribution divided by the number of scores observed (i.e., the sample size). |
| the median | For an ordinal or interval/ratio variable, the middle score in a ranked distribution, the score for which half of the cases fall above and half fall below. |
| the mode | The most frequently occurring score in a distribution |
