St. James 04-29-2025 Statistics Distribution & Variability

By Antoinette Norris Woodson

Open Ended

Determine the Wordplexers. Write the number then the phrase. Include the example in your response.

Example: 3-skirting around the issue

Standards for Today

• SPID.1: Select and create an appropriate display, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots, for data that includes only real numbers.

• G.SPID.2: Use statistics appropriate to the shape of the data distribution to compare the center and spread of two or more different data sets that include all real numbers.

Open Ended

"What is each student’s favorite food?” is an example of:

Numerical Data OR Categorical Data

Open Ended

True or False:
A good statistical question should allow for different answers from different people.

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is a statistical question?

A) What is your shoe size?
B) How many people own a dog in our school?
C) What is the capital of France?
D) What is 10 + 12?

• A

• B

• C

• D

Multiple Choice

Which question is not statistical?

A) How many minutes do students spend doing homework each night?
B) What is your favorite animal?
C) How old am I?
D) How many siblings do students in our class have?

• A

• B

• C

• D

Multiple Choice

A statistical question expects:

A) One exact answer
B) Different answers and data collection
C) A yes or no answer
D) No answer

• A

• B

• C

• D

Open Ended

“What is the number of letters in each student’s last name?” is an example of:

Numerical Data OR Categorical Data

Open Ended

Write an example of your own statistical question.
(Your question should require collecting data from many people.)

Open Ended

Write an example of a numerical data question and a categorical data question.

• Recognize different shapes of distributions

• Understand how shape affects how we describe data

Today's Goals:

Distribution of Shapes

A distribution shows how data is spread out.
It tells you how often different values happen.
✏️ Write down the definition of distribution in your notebook.

What is a Data Distribution?

Symmetric Distributions ✏️

• Both sides look the same.

• Most data is close to the middle.

Real Example:

• Heights of students.

Skewed Distributions ✏️

• Skewed Right: A few big numbers pull the graph right.

• Skewed Left: A few small numbers pull the graph left.

Real Examples:

• Skewed Right: Housing prices.

• Skewed Left: Age at retirement homes.

Bimodal: Two groups show up clearly (like little kids and adults in shoe size).

Uniform: Data is even everywhere (like rolling a die).

Replace this with a header

Types of Data Distributions ✏️

There are different shapes of distributions:

• Symmetrical: Both sides are the same (mirror image).

• Skewed Right: The tail is stretched to the right (higher values).

• Skewed Left: The tail is stretched to the left (lower values).

• Uniform: All data values occur about equally often.

• Bimodal: Two distinct peaks in the data.

Multiple Choice

What is the shape of the distribution?

• Skewed Left 
• Skewed Right
• Symmetric
• Bimodal

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

Describe the shape of the distribution.

• symmetric

• skewed left

• skewed right

Multiple Choice

How would you describe this distribution?

• Left skewed
• Uniform
• Right Skewed
• Symmetrical

Multiple Choice

Choose the best description of the overall shape of the dot plot.

• Skewed right

• Skewed left

• Symmetrical

Multiple Choice

A value that is much higher or much lower than the other values in a set of data.

• Outlier
• Box Plot
• Range
• Histogram

Multiple Choice

Describe the histogram:

• Left Skewed
• Normal/Symmetrical
• Right Skewed
• Uniform/Flat