What is the difference between descriptive and inferential?

Answer 1

Both descriptive and inferential statistics look at a sample from some population.

The difference between descriptive and inferential statistics is in what they do with that sample:

• Descriptive statistics aims to summarize the sample using statistical measures, such as average, median, standard deviation etc. For example, if we look at a Basketball team's game scores over a year, we can calculate the average score, variance etc. and get a description (a statistical profile) for that team.
• Inferential statistics aims to draw conclusions about the population from the sample at hand. For example, it may try to infer the success rate of a drug in treating high temperature, by taking a sample of patients, giving them the drug, and estimating the rate of effectiveness in the population using the rate of effectiveness in the sample.

Please see the related links for more details.
All statistical tests are part of Inferential analysis; there are no tests conducted in Descriptive analysis

· Descriptive analysis- describes the sample's characteristics using…

o Metric- ex. sample mean, standard deviation or variance

o Non-metric variables- ex. median, mode, frequencies & elaborate on zero-order relationships

o Use Excel to help determine these sample characteristics

· Inferential Analysis- draws conclusions about population

o Types of errors

o Issues related to null and alternate hypotheses

o Steps in the Hypothesis Testing Procedure

o Specific statistical tests

Answer 2

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: Methods of organizing, summarizing, and presenting data in an informative way.

For instance, the United States government reports the population of the United States was 179,323,000 in 1960, 203,302,000 in 1970, 226,542,000 in 1980, 248,709,000 in 1990, and 265,000,000 in 2000. This information is descriptive statistics. It is descriptive statistics if we calculate the percentage growth from one decade to the next or average for whole time range.

Inferential Statistics

Another facet of statistics is inferential statistics-also called statistical inference or inductive statistics. Our main concern regarding inferential statistics is finding something about a population from a sample taken from that population

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS: The methods used to determine something about a population on the basis of a sample.

For example, a recent survey showed only 46 percent of high school seniors can solve problems involving fractions, decimals, and percentages. And only 77 percent of high school seniors correctly totaled the cost of soup, a burger, fries, and a cola on a restaurant menu. Since these are inferences about a population (all high school seniors) based on sample data, they are inferential statistics.