Skewness in a data set shows this situation very well.īy skewness we mean that the mean, the median and the mode are not equal to each other, as is the case with the normal distribution. However, life’s not like that and in many cases, the normal distribution does not apply. In a perfect universe, all calculations are simple, relationships are linear and conclusions are easy to draw.
If the world were perfectly round and green cheese from the Moon were easy to obtain free of charge, we needn’t worry about skewness. Once we have appreciated one way to find that value, we will explore the concept in much greater detail. Initially, we will discuss the descriptive statistics utility in Excel, in which we find a value for skewness. The purpose of this page is to introduce and explain the concept o the skewness of data. If you don’t want all of the background, go straight to the Excel file (link at the bottom of the page) I have provided and play around with it. This page is one of the type that I sometimes write: an introduction to a concept or topic or idea and an Excel page.
