final Flashcards
WHAT IS STATISTICS?
It is a set of tools used in order to describe, organize, summarize , interpret data, draw conclusions & relate one data set to another. i.e school scores, level of stress. Statistics help us understand the world around us.
What is descriptive statistics
Tools used to organize and describe characteristics of a collection of data.
What is Inferential statistics?
Next step after descriptive tools to infer data findings from a smaller group/sample to a larger group
What is an average?
It is the one value that best reprents (best value of) an entire group of scores
average = measures of central tendancies.
Define the mean
MOST USED type of average, MOST ACCURATELY reflects the population mean. very SENSITIVE TO EXTREME SCORES as these can pull the mean in one or the other direction & make it less representative of the set of scores and less useful
=TYPICAL, AVERAGE, MOST CENTRAL SCORE
formula to obtain the mean
The sum of all the values in a group, divided by the number of values in the group
What is the difference between statistics and parameters?
PARAMETERS describe POPULATION;
i.e.average height of all WSU students
STATISTICS describe SAMPLES
Ex:average height of the students in our sample
what types of sampling method do we have?
BIASED sample; just ask your friends
RANDOM sampling: everyone in the group has equal chance of being selected
Why is random sampling the best method?
- maximizes chances to have a sample that is BEST REPRESENTATIVE of population
- representative sample, allow us to GENERALIZE OUR RESULTS much easier
Define variable
condition/characteristics that can have different values
Define value
possible number or category a score can have
Define score
A particular person’s value on a variable
difference between mean and median
The mean is the MIDDLE POINT OF A SET OF VALUES and the median is the MIDDLE POINT OF A SET OF CASES, as it cares about how many cases and not the values of those cases.
define median
defined as the MIDPOINT in a set of scores, where 50% of the scores fall ABOVE OR BELOW IT. It is the MIDDLE MOST VALUE. When there is an even number of values the median is the mean of the two middle values.
define mode
- Most GENERAL AND LEAST PRECISE
- helps understand the characteristics of a set of scores.
- value that OCCURS MOST FREQUENTLY
what is an extreme score?
know as outliers
Scores that do not “look like” the rest of the data/observations
Are “very different” from the group to which they belong (high or low)
Known as “outliers” (Can be bigger or smaller)
PULL the value of the mean ineither direction & makes it less valuable to know
characteristics of median
-Cares about how many data points, not the value of each of the data points.
-Insensitive to extreme scores (Outliers)
-Has a relationship with Percentile Points
“at the 50th %” - What does that mean?
You are the top half of the median
characteristics of mode
Possible to have no mode
Possible to have more than one mode
E.g. “bimodal distributions”
characteristics of mean
- “BALANCES” the numbers(Values on either side are equal in weight)
- Same “TOTAL DISTANCE”
- Does not have to be a number in a set
When to use what?
mean is more precise than the median & the median more precise than the mode. WITH ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL USE MEAN
•Use mode for categorical data
•Use median when you have extreme scores
•Use mean when you have data that isn’t categorical and do not have extreme scores.
Define variability
Provide the FULL PICTURE as it reflects HOW SCORES DIFFER FROM ONE ANOTHER, more precisely FROM THE MEAN, since the mean is the best representation of the average of a set of scores.
What are the measures of variability?
Three measures Range, standard deviation and Variance.
Define the range
MOST GENERAL measure of variability, tells how far apart scores from 1 another
- subtract the lowest score from the highest score R=h-l
- not to be used as a conclusion, but as a part of a process