PSY 295 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Statistic, Descriptive Statistics, Statistical Parameter
Document Summary
Small sample sizes can lead to extreme answers. The larger the sample, the closer the answer is to the true answer. Statistics: a set of mathematical procedures for organizing, summarizing, and interpreting information. An algorithm for sorting values from high to low (organizing) The formula for calculating a mean (summarizing) The formula for calculating a t-test (interpreting) Population: the entire set of individuals of interest for a particular research question. Sample: a set of individuals selected from a population, usually intended to represent the population in a research study. Variable: a characteristic or condition that changes or has different values for different individuals. That is, a particular instantiation of a variable. Shirt color is a variable, green is a datum. A list of the shirt colors of everyone in this room is data. Variable is an abstract idea of something that could be measured. Data is a set of values that have actually been measured.
