PSY201H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Nominal Level, Descriptive Statistics, Telephone Directory
15 Sep 2016
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Lecture 1 (september 13, 2016): what statistical thinking means. Scientific method (self correcting process: background research, hypothesis, experiment, results, significance/analysis/conclusions, share with peers (communication) So that peers can correct it if the hypothesis is wrong. Encourages replication in order to keep the scientific method working. Statistics are based on samples: populations and samples (neither is completely free of bias) Interested in a population of individuals, but you cannot access all the individuals, so we use samples. Populations are everyone in the group we are interested in. Ex: men between the ages of 10 and 30. Parameters are what is used to describe a population: ex: mean of the population. Statistics are based on samples: descriptive statistics. Statistics that are used to summarize data or to describe a sample. Ex: describing a sample using the mean or median: inferential statistics. Statistics used to make inferences about the population.
