Difference b/w Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

There are two major fields within Statistics and people can often feel confused as to what the difference is between the two. Each of them is important and pursues different objectives. These fields are known as Descriptive Statistics and Differential Statistics. Difference b/w Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

If you have doubts about it or want a little more information about the difference between these two areas of Statistics, keep reading, because below we will explain what the difference is between Inferential Statistics and Descriptive Statistics.

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS  Difference b/w Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

This is the best known to most and as its name implies, its purpose is to describe. In this case, numerical measures are used to analyze data and reach conclusions from them.

There are some elements and categories that belong specifically to this field of Statistics, such as:

• The average: or measure of central tendency that results from the calculation of the sum of all the data of a variable divided by the number of data that it contains.
• Dispersion: it has to do with the distance or difference between each value of the variable and its average.
• Measure of skewness and kurtosis.
• Exploration of relationship and correlation between data sets.
• Presentations of statistical results in the form of graphs.

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

This area of ​​Statistics is responsible for the study of statistical samples. From the analysis of these samples, Inferential Statistics can infer, estimate or draw conclusions from the sample of a population.

In turn, Inferential Statistics is divided into two large groups, which are:

• The estimation of confidence intervals: which is a range of values ​​for an unknown parameter through the measurement of the sample taken from a population.
• Significance test or hypothesis test: consists of testing the statements made about a population based on the measurement of the sample.

In short, the difference between Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics is that the former is only responsible for making descriptions based on certain data; while the second goes further and makes estimates about the data collected from samples taken from a population.