How to Read Table 1 of a Paper
A quick refresher of statistics you need to know!
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Hi! In today’s newsletter, we’ll quickly review how to read “Table 1” of a research paper.
Reading quantitative tables can be daunting, especially if you’re new to research or statistics. However, with some practice, understanding Table 1 will become easy!
Table 1 presents the characteristics of the study population or sample. This can include demographic information as well as clinical characteristics.
It is typically a collection of descriptive statistics to give you an idea about the key characteristics of the sample.
Here is an example of what a study’s Table 1 looks like:
When reading Table 1, paying attention to the column and row headings is important. These will tell you what information is being presented in each table cell.
For example, if the row headings are “Age” and “Sex” and the column headings are “Control” and “Treatment,” then the cells in the table will contain information about the age and sex of the control and treatment groups.
Paying attention to the label, footnotes or explanatory notes accompanying the table is also essential as these can provide important information about how the data was collected or analyzed and any limitations.
Population characteristics are usually compared to each other using simple statistics. Here are 5 basic stats you need to know in order to read Table 1:
Mean:
The mean is the most commonly used measure of central tendency in social sciences. It is used commonly because of its simplicity and intuitiveness.
There are some drawbacks to using the mean though. It can be extremely sensitive to extreme data and might paint an inaccurate picture of the data you are trying to study.
For eg. It is commonly believed that the average life span in earlier times was ~30 years. This doesn’t mean that most people died at the age of 30. The high infant mortality rates in earlier times meant that the average life span was pulled down considerably.
Median
The median is another measure of central tendency but unlike the mean, it is not sensitive to extreme values. The median is the midpoint of the data.
Think of it as the point below and above which 50% of the data lies. The median is a handy measure when assessing wealth or income inequality since it gives a better idea of what the “middle” portion actually earns.
Standard Deviation
You are likely to see it next to the mean with a ‘±’ symbol in tables. The standard deviation gives you an idea about how spread out the data is.
A high standard deviation suggests higher variability in the data while a smaller SD means the data does not have a lot of variation.
Range
Much like the standard deviation, the range is a measure of dispersion from a central tendency. Unlike the SD though, the range is not centered around the mean.
It is simply the difference between the highest and lowest values in a particular data set. Much like the mean, the range is also highly susceptible to extreme values and is thus not commonly used as a measure of dispersion.
Skewness
The skewness is a measure of the deviation of a data set from the normal distribution curve. When data is normally distributed, the mean, median and mode lie at the same point but the same is not true for skewed data. Skewed data has a characteristically long tail towards one side of the distribution.
That’s it! An understanding of how to read Table 1 and the basic stats involved will help you make better assertions from research papers.
“Understanding 20% of statistics will improve 80% of your inferences.”
- Daniel Lakens, experimental psychologist
A big thanks to Arjun Gupta for writing this week’s newsletter. He has a wonderful LinkedIn page (link below) with 19.5k followers, where he writes on basic statistics and psychology. Please consider joining his newsletter, if these topics interest you.
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