What do descriptive statistics provide in research?

Descriptive statistics serve to summarize and characterize a data set, providing a clear and concise overview of the information at hand. They are useful tools for researchers to organize and present data, focusing on measures such as mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation. By offering insights into the central tendency and variability of the data, descriptive statistics allow researchers to understand the basic features and distribution of the data set, making it easier to communicate findings effectively.

In contrast, other options relate to different statistical concepts. Predictions about future trends pertain to inferential statistics, which go beyond the data at hand to extrapolate future outcomes. Similarly, making inferences about population parameters involves hypothesis testing and estimation, relying on inferential statistics to generalize findings from a sample to a larger group. Lastly, comparative analysis between different datasets involves methods of analysis that are usually exploratory or inferential in nature, focusing on the relationships or differences between sets rather than summarizing their characteristics. Thus, the focus of descriptive statistics is specifically on summarizing data rather than predicting, inferring, or comparing datasets.