What are descriptive statistics?

Descriptive statistics are essential tools in data analysis that provide a numerical summary and an overview of the characteristics of a dataset. They help in understanding the basic features of the data by offering measures such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and range, among others. These statistics allow researchers and analysts to convey the central tendency, dispersion, and shape of the data distribution effectively.

When looking at other options, they do not accurately reflect the purpose of descriptive statistics. The first option deals with hypothesis testing, which is part of inferential statistics, not descriptive. The third option mentions qualitative data analysis, which focuses on non-numeric information rather than the numeric summarization of data inherent to descriptive statistics. The last choice refers to data collected from a single source, which doesn’t encapsulate the broader concept of descriptive statistics; these can be applied to data sets that involve multiple sources or observations. Therefore, the correct answer captures the essence of summarizing and describing dataset characteristics through numerical data.