Final answer:
Statistical methods that organize and summarize data, such as finding the average value, are called descriptive statistics, which includes measures like mean and standard deviation. Inferential statistics is used for making predictions or generalizations about a population from sample data. So, the correct answer a.
Step-by-step explanation:
Statistical methods that organize data into meaningful patterns and summaries, such as finding the average value, are called descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics summarize data through various measures, including the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation.
They help to describe the basic features of the data in a study and provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures. One of the primary aspects of descriptive statistics is to present data in a manageable form, making it easier to understand large amounts of data and the properties of the data.
Once you have organized and summarized the data using descriptive statistics, you may want to make predictions or generalizations about the population from which the sample was taken.
This process of making inferences about a population based on sample data is known as inferential statistics. It includes various tests of significance that help in determining the probability that an observed pattern or relationship in the data occurred by chance.