Statistics with Python

Statistics, in general, is the method of collection of data, tabulation, and interpretation of

numerical data. It is an area of applied mathematics concerned with data collection analysis,
interpretation, and presentation. With statistics, we can see how data can be used to solve complex
problems.

Understanding the Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics is about describing and summarizing data. It uses two main approaches:

1. The quantitative approach describes and summarizes data numerically.

2. The visual approach illustrates data with charts, plots, histograms, and other graphs.

You can apply descriptive statistics to one or many datasets or variables. When you describe
and summarize a single variable, you’re performing univariate analysis. When you search for
statistical relationships among a pair of variables, you’re doing a bivariate analysis. Similarly,
a multivariate analysis is concerned with multiple variables at once.

Types of Measures

In this tutorial, you’ll learn about the following types of measures in descriptive statistics:

 Central tendency tells you about the centers of the data. Useful measures include the mean,
median, and mode.
 Variability tells you about the spread of the data. Useful measures include variance and
standard deviation.
 Correlation or joint variability tells you about the relation between a pair of variables in a
dataset. Useful measures include covariance and the correlation coefficient.

There are two types of Descriptive Statistics:

 The measure of central tendency

 Measure of variability

Types of Descriptive Statistics

1. Measure of Central Tendency

The measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe the whole set of
data. There are three main features of central tendency:

 Mean
 Median
 Median Low
 Median High
 Mode
 The measure of Central Tendency

Mean

It is the sum of observations divided by the total number of observations. It is also defined
as average which is the sum divided by count. The mean() function returns the mean or average of
the data passed in its arguments. If the passed argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised.

Example: Python code to calculate mean

# Python code to demonstrate the working of

# mean()

# importing statistics to handle statistical

# operations
import statistics

# initializing list
li = [1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1]

# using mean() to calculate average of list

# elements
print ("The average of list values is : ",end="")
print (statistics.mean(li))

Output:

The average of list values is : 2

Median

It is the middle value of the data set. It splits the data into two halves. If the number of
elements in the data set is odd then the center element is the median and if it is even then the
median would be the average of two central elements. it first sorts the data i=and then performs the
median operation. The median() function is used to calculate the median, i.e middle element of
data. If the passed argument is empty, Statistics Error is raised.

Example: Python code to calculate Median

# Python code to demonstrate the

# working of median() on various
# range of data-sets

# importing the statistics module

from statistics import median

# Importing fractions module as fr

from fractions import Fraction as fr

# tuple of positive integer numbers

data1 = (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11)

# tuple of floating point values

data2 = (2.4, 5.1, 6.7, 8.9)
 # tuple of fractional numbers
data3 = (fr(1, 2), fr(44, 12),
fr(10, 3), fr(2, 3))

# tuple of a set of negative integers

data4 = (-5, -1, -12, -19, -3)

# tuple of set of positive

# and negative integers
data5 = (-1, -2, -3, -4, 4, 3, 2, 1)

# Printing the median of above datasets

print("Median of data-set 1 is % s" % (median(data1)))
print("Median of data-set 2 is % s" % (median(data2)))
print("Median of data-set 3 is % s" % (median(data3)))
print("Median of data-set 4 is % s" % (median(data4)))
print("Median of data-set 5 is % s" % (median(data5)))

Output:

Median of data-set 1 is 5

Median of data-set 2 is 5.9

Median of data-set 3 is 2

Median of data-set 4 is -5

Median of data-set 5 is 0.0

Median Low

The median_low() function returns the median of data in case of odd number of elements,
but in case of even number of elements, returns the lower of two middle elements. If the passed
argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised

Example: Python code to calculate Median Low

# Python code to demonstrate the

# working of median_low()

# importing the statistics module

import statistics

# simple list of a set of integers

set1 = [1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7]

# Print median of the data-set

# Median value may or may not

# lie within the data-set
print("Median of the set is % s"
% (statistics.median(set1)))
 # Print low median of the data-set
print("Low Median of the set is % s "
% (statistics.median_low(set1)))

Output:
Median of the set is 3.5
Low Median of the set is 3

Median High

The median_high() function returns the median of data in case of odd number of elements,
but in case of even number of elements, returns the higher of two middle elements. If passed
argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised.

Example: Python code to calculate Median High

# Working of median_high() and median() to

# demonstrate the difference between them.

# importing the statistics module

import statistics

# simple list of a set of integers

set1 = [1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7]

# Print median of the data-set

# Median value may or may not

# lie within the data-set
print("Median of the set is %s"
% (statistics.median(set1)))

# Print high median of the data-set

print("High Median of the set is %s "
% (statistics.median_high(set1)))

Output:

Median of the set is 3.5

High Median of the set is 4

Mode

It is the value that has the highest frequency in the given data set. The data set may have no
mode if the frequency of all data points is the same. Also, we can have more than one mode if we
encounter two or more data points having the same frequency.

The mode() function returns the number with the maximum number of occurrences. If the
passed argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised.

Example: Python code to calculate Mode

 # Python code to demonstrate the
# working of mode() function
# on a various range of data types

# Importing the statistics module

from statistics import mode

# Importing fractions module as fr

# Enables to calculate harmonic_mean of a
# set in Fraction
from fractions import Fraction as fr

# tuple of positive integer numbers

data1 = (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7)

# tuple of a set of floating point values

data2 = (2.4, 1.3, 1.3, 1.3, 2.4, 4.6)

# tuple of a set of fractional numbers

data3 = (fr(1, 2), fr(1, 2), fr(10, 3), fr(2, 3))

# tuple of a set of negative integers

data4 = (-1, -2, -2, -2, -7, -7, -9)

# tuple of strings
data5 = ("red", "blue", "black", "blue", "black", "black", "brown")

# Printing out the mode of the above data-sets

print("Mode of data set 1 is % s" % (mode(data1)))
print("Mode of data set 2 is % s" % (mode(data2)))
print("Mode of data set 3 is % s" % (mode(data3)))
print("Mode of data set 4 is % s" % (mode(data4)))
print("Mode of data set 5 is % s" % (mode(data5)))

Output:
Mode of data set 1 is 5
Mode of data set 2 is 1.3
Mode of data set 3 is 1/2
Mode of data set 4 is -2
Mode of data set 5 is black
Measure of Variability

Till now, we have studied the measure of central tendency but this alone is not sufficient to
describe the data. To overcome this we need the measure of variability. The measure of variability
is known as the spread of data or how well our data is distributed.

The most common variability measures are:

 Range
 Variance
 Standard deviation
Range

The difference between the largest and smallest data point in our data set is known as the
range. The range is directly proportional to the spread of data which means the bigger the range, the
more the spread of data and vice versa.

Range = Largest data value – smallest data value

We can calculate the maximum and minimum values using the max() and min() methods
respectively.

Example: Python code to calculate Range

# Sample Data
arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

#Finding Max
Maximum = max(arr)
# Finding Min
Minimum = min(arr)

# Difference Of Max and Min

Range = Maximum-Minimum
print("Maximum = {}, Minimum = {} and Range = {}".format(
Maximum, Minimum, Range))

Output:

Maximum = 5, Minimum = 1 and Range = 4

Variance

It is defined as an average squared deviation from the mean. It is calculated by finding the
difference between every data point and the average which is also known as the mean, squaring
them, adding all of them, and then dividing by the number of data points present in our data set.

where N = number of terms

u = Mean

The statistics module provides the variance() method that does all the maths behind the scene. If the
passed argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised.

Example: Python code to calculate Variance

# Python code to demonstrate variance()

# function on varying range of data-types

# importing statistics module

from statistics import variance

# importing fractions as parameter values

 from fractions import Fraction as fr

# tuple of a set of positive integers

# numbers are spread apart but not very much
sample1 = (1, 2, 5, 4, 8, 9, 12)

# tuple of a set of negative integers

sample2 = (-2, -4, -3, -1, -5, -6)

# tuple of a set of positive and negative numbers

# data-points are spread apart considerably
sample3 = (-9, -1, -0, 2, 1, 3, 4, 19)

# tuple of a set of fractional numbers

sample4 = (fr(1, 2), fr(2, 3), fr(3, 4),
fr(5, 6), fr(7, 8))

# tuple of a set of floating point values

sample5 = (1.23, 1.45, 2.1, 2.2, 1.9)

# Print the variance of each samples

print("Variance of Sample1 is % s " % (variance(sample1)))
print("Variance of Sample2 is % s " % (variance(sample2)))
print("Variance of Sample3 is % s " % (variance(sample3)))
print("Variance of Sample4 is % s " % (variance(sample4)))
print("Variance of Sample5 is % s " % (variance(sample5)))

Output:

Variance of Sample1 is 15.80952380952381

Variance of Sample2 is 3.5

Variance of Sample3 is 61.125

Variance of Sample4 is 1/45

Variance of Sample5 is 0.17613000000000006

Standard Deviation

It is defined as the square root of the variance. It is calculated by finding the Mean, then
subtracting each number from the Mean which is also known as the average, and squaring the
result. Adding all the values and then dividing by the no of terms followed by the square root.

where N = number of terms

u = Mean

The stdev() method of the statistics module returns the standard deviation of the data. If the passed
argument is empty, StatisticsError is raised.
 Example: Python code to calculate Standard Deviation

# Python code to demonstrate stdev()

# function on various range of datasets

# importing the statistics module

from statistics import stdev

# importing fractions as parameter values

from fractions import Fraction as fr

# creating a varying range of sample sets

# numbers are spread apart but not very much
sample1 = (1, 2, 5, 4, 8, 9, 12)

# tuple of a set of negative integers

sample2 = (-2, -4, -3, -1, -5, -6)

# tuple of a set of positive and negative numbers

# data-points are spread apart considerably
sample3 = (-9, -1, -0, 2, 1, 3, 4, 19)

# tuple of a set of floating point values

sample4 = (1.23, 1.45, 2.1, 2.2, 1.9)

# Print the standard deviation of

# following sample sets of observations
print("The Standard Deviation of Sample1 is % s"
% (stdev(sample1)))

print("The Standard Deviation of Sample2 is % s"

% (stdev(sample2)))

print("The Standard Deviation of Sample3 is % s"

% (stdev(sample3)))

print("The Standard Deviation of Sample4 is % s"

% (stdev(sample4)))

Output:

The Standard Deviation of Sample1 is 3.9761191895520196

The Standard Deviation of Sample2 is 1.8708286933869707

The Standard Deviation of Sample3 is 7.8182478855559445

The Standard Deviation of Sample4 is 0.41967844833872525