Statistical principles 1

Question 1

What are the characteristics of descriptive statistics?

Answer 1

• organise
• summarise
• simplify
• no predictions or inferences made regarding population parameters
• describe and present data
  e. g. - mean, median, SD, quartiles

Question 2

What are the characteristics of inferential statistics?

Answer 2

• generalise from samples to populations
• hypothesis testing
• make predictions
• used to infer or predict population parameters through inductive reasoning based on mathematically probability

Question 3

What is the hierarchal order of measurement?

Answer 3

• nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio

Question 4

describe each level of measurement and provide examples?

Answer 4

Nominal - classification - gender, ethnicity, blood group

Ordinal - classification and order - however distance between units have no meaning - race position, weight classification and RPE

Interval - classification, order and distance between units have meaning - temperature, IQ, RPE

Ratio - classification, order, distance and natural origin / true absolute zero - age, energy intake, vo2max, height

Question 5

List and describe the measures of central tendency

Answer 5

• mean - average or norm
• median - the point which has half the values in sample above and half below
• mode - most frequent value occurring in a data set

Question 6

Provide measure of variability

Answer 6

• range
• variation from the mean / variance
• standard deviation

Question 7

What is probability?

Answer 7

chance of something occurring/likeliness of occurrence

Question 8

frequency distribution - what is 1, 2 and 3SD from the mean?

Answer 8

1 SD - 68.3%
2 SD - 95.4%
3 SD - 99.7%