An important numerical measure of the shape of a distribution is the
A)correlation coefficient
B)variance
C)skewness
D)relative location

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Skewness is the measure of symmetry of a distribution. A positive skew indicates that the tail of the distribution stretches towards the positive end of the axis, while a negative skew indicates the opposite. Thus, skewness can be used to identify the presence of outliers, which can affect the mean and standard deviation and can provide insights into the underlying factors that may be influencing the distribution. Correlation coefficient and relative location are measures of association, while variance is a measure of the spread of the data, but not its shape.

An Important Numerical Measure of the Shape of a Distribution