skjevhetsverdi

Skjevhetsverdi, often translated as skewness, is a statistical measure that describes the asymmetry of a probability distribution. A distribution can be positively skewed, negatively skewed, or symmetrical.

A positively skewed distribution, also known as right-skewed, has a long tail extending to the right. In such a distribution, the mean is typically greater than the median, which is in turn greater than the mode. This indicates that there are a few high-value outliers pulling the mean towards the right.

A negatively skewed distribution, also known as left-skewed, has a long tail extending to the left. Here, the mode is typically greater than the median, which is greater than the mean. This suggests the presence of a few low-value outliers pulling the mean towards the left.

A symmetrical distribution, such as a normal distribution, has no skewness. The mean, median, and mode are all equal, and the distribution appears balanced on either side of the center.

The skewness coefficient is a numerical value that quantifies the degree and direction of skewness. A skewness value of zero indicates perfect symmetry. Positive values indicate positive skewness, and negative values indicate negative skewness. The magnitude of the skewness value suggests the extent of the asymmetry. For instance, a skewness value of 0.5 is considered moderately positively skewed, while a value of 2.0 would indicate a strongly positively skewed distribution. Skewness is an important descriptive statistic used in data analysis to understand the shape of a dataset and to identify potential biases or unusual data points.