Descriptive Statistics—Investigating Questions of Representativeness

This chapter employs descriptive statistics to explore how we might characterize a “representative” governor’s term for the two distinct periods in Constantine’s history (1567–1791 and 1792–1837) that we identified through exploratory data visualization in Chapter 5. In doing so, this chapter models how to use summary statistics, such as measures of center (mean, median, and mode), measures of dispersion (e.g., interquartile range, standard deviation, and z-scores) in humanistic and social science research. Juxtaposing quantitative descriptive statistics and box plots for Constantinian gubernatorial tenures calls into question historians’ assumptions that Ottoman Sultans actually followed their stated practice of moving governors every three years. Similarly, calculating and graphing the z-score distributions of governors’ tenure data suggests a new periodization for Constantine’s history.