On Fri, 15 Feb 2002 15:45:05 -0500 "John W. Kulig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Tipsters: > Question 1. Most texts do frequency distributions from highest to lowest > score, as in: > > X tally > 34 xx > 33 xxxxx > 32 xxxxxxx > . > Has there ever been any reason to list from high to low?? One reason may have been related to preparing to produce a histogram the old-fashioned way, by hand on graph paper. Origins usually begin with small numbers and increase in value along both X and Y. So that organization was carried over to producing the list. Changes in procedures make many people nervous. I was illustrating how the median was determined in a set of 48 numbers yesterday in methods class and counted "down" instead of "up." A student was very upset because they had learned to do it "the other way" in statistics. I tried to explain that the direction was irrelevant, and showed him that we ended up at the same location in the distribution in both cases. His brow-furroughed reply was "maybe so............in this case." Ken ---------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
