Besides mean, standard deviation, median, interquartile range, mode, and frequency, there are other descriptive statistics that you may need to report in APA style depending on your research question and data analysis.
Presenting Descriptive Statistics in Writing
There are a few important APA style guidelines here. First, statistical results are always presented in the form of numerals rather than words and are usually rounded to two decimal places (e.g., “2.00” rather than “two” or “2”).
Decimal Places and Leading Zeros
The number of decimal places to report depends on what you’re reporting. Generally, you should aim to round numbers while retaining precision Formatting Mathematical Formulas
Provide formulas only when you use new or uncommon equations. For short equations Formatting Statistical Terms
When reporting statistical results, present information in easily understandable ways. You can use a mix of text, tables Reporting Means and Standard Deviations
Report descriptive statisticsto summarize your data. Quantitative data is often reported using means and standard deviations Reporting Chi-Square Tests
To report the results of a chi-square test, include the following: 1. the degrees of freedom (df) in parentheses 2 Reporting Z Tests and T Tests
For z tests
To report the results of a ztest, include the following: 1. the z value (also referred to as the z statistic or zscore) 2 Reporting Analysis of Variance
To report the results of an ANOVA, include the following: 1. the degrees of freedom (between groups, within groups) in parentheses 2 Reporting Correlations
To report the results of a correlation, include the following: 1. the degrees of freedom in parentheses 2 Reporting Regressions
Results of regression analysesare often displayed in a table because the output includes many numbers The following are some key points for writing descriptive results:
- Add a table of the raw data in the appendix
Write out simple descriptive statistics in American Psychological Association (APA) style. Interpret and create simple APA-style graphs—including bar graphs, line graphs, and scatterplots. Interpret and create simple APA-style tables—including tables of group or condition means and correlation matrixes.
Do not give references for statistics unless the statistic is uncommon, used unconventionally, or is the focus of the article Do not give formulas for common statistics (i.e. mean, t test) Do not repeat descriptive statistics in the text if they’re represented in a table or figureDescriptive statistics summarize your data for the reader.
Present descriptive statistics for each primary, secondary, and subgroup analysis. Don’t provide formulas or citations for commonly used statistics (e.g., standard deviation) – but do provide them for new or rare equations.In reporting the results of
statistical tests, report the
descriptive statistics, such as means and standard deviations, as well as the test statistic, degrees of freedom, obtained value of the test, and the probability of the result occurring by chance (p value).
