degree of freedom explaination

Hello Aspirant,

Degrees of freedom represented by the symbol df in statistics and research methodology is a bit complicated concept hence unless you read about it with a good number of valid examples , it will not be clear . But to give an overview of it , degrees of freedom basically means number of independent pieces of information that was required to arrive at the ultimate value of mean ,standard deviation  or any other calculation.That does not mean it has related to number of samples chosen , it more than that.  It can also be understood as extend to which a final value can vary or the possible range of results . For instance if you have a coin and you toss it , you know it can either be head or tails , so there is only one possibility there and if you get head you automatically know the other outcome would have been tails . So you only needed one piece of information ( which is heads) to figure out the other only possible outcome is tails , hence the degrees of freedom here is 1. Similarly to locate a point on graph , you need both x and y axis coordinates, hence the degrees of freedom of the point is 2 . This is because to make a calculation of the position of the point , two pieces of information (x and y) ,therefore df is 2 . Kindly search deeper about this concept and learn with examples according to the context of your choice because it exists in physics, research , statistics , chemistry and so on.

Hope it helps.

Hello there,

In Physics and Chemistry, the number of degrees of freedom of a dynamical system is defined as the total number of co-ordinates or independent variables required to describe the position and configuration of the system.

For translatory motion

(a) A particle moving in a straight line along any one of the axes has one degree of freedom (e.g). Bob of an oscillating simple pendulum.

(b) A particle moving in a plane (X and Y axes) has two degrees of freedom. (e.g) An ant that moves on a floor.

(c) A particle moving in space (X, Y and Z axes) has three degrees of freedom. (e.g) a bird that flies.

Hope it helps.