Definitions Flashcards
Statistical Inference
The process of drawing conclusions about the probability distribution function associated to one or more variables on a population from information obtained on a sample.
Population
A set about which we wish to draw conclusions.
Variable
Defined on a population is some characteristic of elements of the population.
Census
A study where the variables in question are measured for every member of a population.
Survey
A study where the variables in question are measured on a SRS of the population.
SRS
Sample taken with replacement.
Subset
A sample taken without replacement.
Levels of a variable
The possible outcomes you consider for a variable.
Simple Random Sample (SRS)
An SRS of size N of a population is a vector of length N consisting of elements of the population, where every elements of the population has an equal chance of being chosen for each entry of the vector.
Observational study
The collection and analysis of data with the goal in mind of determining the characteristics of a population.
Experiment
Occurs when a researcher is able to control which members of a sample receive one or more interventions or treatments (experimental group) and which do not (control group) or which receive some other comparison treatment (comparison group).
True experiment
An experiment where participants are randomly allocated to groups.
Quasi experiment
An experiment where participants are allocated to groups through some non-random process.
Response/dependent variable
The variable whose values are to be predicted from other values.
Predictor/independent variables
Variables whose values are used to predict values of another variable.
Lurking/confounding variables
Variables that are not measured in an observational study, but which influences both the prediction and response variables.
Nuisance/covariant variables
A variable that is recorded in a study because it may affect the response, but it not one of the primary variables of interest.
Factors
The nuisance and predictor variables in a study of experiment.
Probability Density Function (PDF)
A function that describes the likelihood of a random variable taking a given value.
Statistic
Any quantity that may be calculated from the values of a set of random variables on a random sample of a population.
Estimator
A statistic on a sample which is often taken to estimate some function of the parameters in a model for the random variables on the population.
Sampling distribution
The probability density function associated to a statistic calculated of size n from a population.
Most likely value
Of a statistic under a given null hypothesis is the maximum value for the sampling distribution for that statistic under the null hypothesis.
Region of acceptance
Given a significance level, for the null hypothesis is the interval of possible values for the statistic on a given sample that wiki not lead you to reject the null hypothesis.
P-value
Tells you how likely a result is or more extreme that the one obtained from a given study or experiment is to have occurred purely by chance if the null hypothesis is correct.