Descriptive Statistics
Numerical and graphical summaries, such as means, percentages, and charts, that describe the basic features of a dataset without drawing wider conclusions.
Descriptive statistics summarize and organize the data you actually collected. They include measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), measures of spread (standard deviation, variance, range), and counts or percentages for categorical variables. Tables, frequency distributions, and charts are also descriptive tools. Unlike inferential statistics, descriptive statistics make no claims beyond the sample itself; they simply report what the data look like.
In a thesis, descriptive statistics usually open the results chapter. They characterize your sample, let readers judge whether it resembles the wider population, and reveal patterns, outliers, or skewed distributions that shape which inferential tests are appropriate. Reporting them clearly, typically in a table of means, standard deviations, and frequencies, shows examiners that you understood your data before you tested hypotheses on it.
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