Lecture 8: Connects Research Methods to Statistics

Question 1

What are the two type of statistics?

Answer 1

• descriptive statistics
• inferential statistics

Question 1

Why do researchers analyze data?

Answer 1

• determine trends or patterns
• test hypotheses and generalize results

Question 2

What are descriptive statistics?

Answer 2

• summarize, organize and simply
• visual representations or numerical

Question 3

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 3

• test research hypotheses
• allow researchers to draw conclusions about their hypotheses
• use sample data to generalize to population

Question 4

How do I choose a statistical analysis?

Answer 4

• what is the goal of your research study
• what scale of measurement was use to measure your variables?
• are you comparing across groups/conditions or examining relationships?
• how often did you measure each participant?

Question 5

What would you do if the goal of your research was to describe behaviour?

Answer 5

use descriptive statistics to summarize and organize data measures from your sample

Question 6

What would you do if the goal of your research was to make inferences about differences or relationships among your variables?

Answer 6

• use descriptive statistics to examine the data overall
• use inferential statistics your hypothesized difference or relationship of interest

Question 7

What are the different scales of measurement?

Answer 7

• nominal
• ordinal
• interval
• ratio

Question 8

What are nominal variables?

Answer 8

• classifies into different categories
• data are counts of individuals per category
• categories differ in quality not quantity

Question 9

What are ordinal variables?

Answer 9

• ordered categories with no evidence of size of ranked difference
• data are ranks

Question 10

What are interval variables?

Answer 10

• ordered categories separated by same-size intervals
• data are numerical scores/values

Question 11

What are ratio variables?

Answer 11

• ordered categories separated by same-size intervals
• zero score indicates absence of variable measures
• data are numerical scores/values

Question 12

What are you examining in experimental and quasi-experimental research designs?

Answer 12

make comparisons across groups or conditions

Question 13

What are you examining in non-experimental research designs?

Answer 13

look at relationships among variables

Question 14

What are statistical tests for group comparisons?

Answer 14

• t-tests
• ANOVA

Question 15

What are statistical tests for relationships?

Answer 15

• chi-square tests
• loglinear models
• correlation
• regression

Question 16

What are independent measures data?

Answer 16

• each individual participant provides only one score per variable
• between-subjects designs

Question 17

What are dependent measures data?

Answer 17

• each individual participant provides more than one score per variable
• within-subjects designs

Question 18

What are different descriptive statistics?

Answer 18

• measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode)
• measures of variability (range, standard deviation)
• other numerical descriptive statistics (frequencies, effect sizes)