Example of a Positively Skewed Distribution

Which of the following best describes the shape of a positively skewed distribution?

In a positively skewed distribution of reaction times (where most participants are relatively fast, but a few are very slow), arrange these measures of central tendency from the lowest numerical value to the highest numerical value.

A psychologist measuring the number of errors made on a maze task finds that most participants make very few errors, while only a few participants make a high number of errors. This data set represents a positively skewed distribution.

A clinical psychologist measures 'symptoms of anxiety' in a non-clinical population and finds that while most students report very few symptoms, a few report a very high number. Analyze this positively skewed distribution by matching each term to its specific role or visual impact within this data set.

In a positively skewed distribution, the long 'tail' of the scores trails off toward the lower values of the range.

If a researcher finds that a dataset forms a 'positively skewed' distribution, what does this reveal about the concentration of scores?

A psychologist is evaluating the results of a psychometric test where the majority of participants scored very low, but a small group of high-achievers created a tail extending toward the right. When judging the validity of the arithmetic mean as a measure of the 'typical' score, the researcher identifies that the data follows a/an _____ skewed distribution, which explains why the mean is being disproportionately inflated by extreme outliers.

A psychology researcher measures the number of weekly hours spent studying by undergraduate students. Most students study very few hours, but a few study a very high number of hours. Match each characteristic of this study's positively skewed distribution to its corresponding physical description.

A developmental psychologist measures the number of times children exhibit aggressive behavior during a 10-minute free-play period. After plotting the data, the psychologist notices that most children show very little aggression (shifting the peak of scores toward the lower end of the range), but a few highly aggressive children produce a long tail trailing off toward the higher values. By analyzing these features, the psychologist can conclude that the dataset forms a _____ skewed distribution.

A researcher is evaluating a graph of response times to verify if it represents a positively skewed distribution. Arrange the following spatial features of the distribution in order from the lowest values on the scale (left) to the highest values on the scale (right).