Question

What does it mean to have a skewed distribution? What causes

a skew in statistical terms? And how does one deal with skewed
data when conducting research? Are there specific types of
research questions and types of data where one would expect
the data to be skewed?

Answer 1

Explained below.

Explanation:

A) A skewed distribution in a dataset is when the median is not equal to the mean in such a manner that the bell curve is tilted to the left or right.

B) If in a data set, there are outliers which are extremely large or extremely small in comparison to other values in that same dataset, then we can say that such a curve will be pulled towards the outlier and thus the distribution is skewed.

Also, if the curve is inclined to the left, it means there are few extreme values to the left and is is negatively skewed.

Similarly, if the curve is inclined to the right, it means there are few extreme values to the right and is positively skewed.

C) Example of a research question is;

If in a developed country where the poverty level is about 0%, if we collect the data of income of the households, we will discover majority of people with average income and very few people with extreme high levels of income. This condition means the data to is positively skewed.