Evaluating the Findings Flashcards
Once you have results from your research, you must do 3 things: -describe them -assess how reliable and meaningful they are -figure out how to explain them
Define: Descriptive Statistics
Statistics that organize and summarize research data.
The most common way to summarize data is to compute group averages. How does the Arithmetic Mean do this?
By adding up all the individual scores and dividing by number of scores.
What does Standard Deviation tell us?
It tells us how clustered or spread out the individual scores are around the mean. It lets us know how typical the mean score is. (more spread out, less typical)
What statistics allow researchers to draw inferences about how statistically meaningful the results of a study are?
Inferential Statistics
An example of an inferential statistic is a Significance Test, which…
tells us how likely a result occurred by chance
When would you call a result Statistically Significant?
When a result is expected to occur by chance no more than 5 out of 100 times. Above 0.5 would be considered insignificant and unsuppporting.
Define: Cross-Sectional study
Different groups are compared at the same time. (ex. ages 20, 30, 40 ,50)
Define: Longitudinal study
Measuring mental abilities across a lifespan by being reassessed at regular intervals.
Define: Meta-analysis
Meta-analysis combines and analyzes data from many different studies focusing on one particular topic. It can determine how much variance across studies can be explained by one particular variable.
Define: Effect Size
How powerful the independent variable is (how much actual variation it is accountable for)
