inferential statistics Procedure for drawing conclusions about a population

based on data collected from a sample.

hypothesis testing The process of determining whether a hypothesis is supported

by the results of a research study.

null hypothesis The hypothesis predicting that no difference exists between the
groups being compared

alternative hypothesis or research hypothesis the hypothesis that the

researcher wants to support, predicting that a significant difference exists between the
groups being compared.

one tailed hypothesis (directional hypothesis) An alternative hypothesis in

which the researcher predicts the direction of the expected difference between the
groups.

two-tailed hypothesis (non-directional hypothesis) An alternative hypothesis in

which the researcher predicts that the groups being compared differ but does not predict
the direction of the
difference.

Type I Error An in hypothesis testing in which the null hypothesis is rejected

when it is true. These errors can be thought of as false alarms - we say there is a
difference when there really is not.

Type II Error An error in hypothesis testing in which there is a failure to reject

the null hypothesis when it is false.

Statistical significance An observed difference between two descriptive

statistics (such as means) that is unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Single Group Design A research study in which there is only one group of
participants.

Parametric Test A statistical test that involves making assumptions about

estimates of population characteristics, or parameters.

nonparametric test A statistical test that does not involve the use of any
population parameters: μ and σ are not needed, and the underlying distribution does not
have to be normal.

Z Test A parametric inferential statistical test of the null hypothesis for a single
sample where the population variance is known.
sampling distribution A distribution of sample means based on random samples
of a fixed size from a population.

Standard error of the mean The standard deviation of the sampling

distribution.

Central Limit Theorem A theorem which states that for any population with
mean μ and standard deviation σ, the distribution of sample means for the sample size N
will have mean of μ and a standard deviation of σ/√N and will approach a normal
distribution as N approaches infinity.

Critical Value The value of a test statistic taht marks the edge of the region of
rejection in a sampling distribution, where values equal to it or beyond it fall in the region
of rejection.

Region of Rejection The area of a sampling distribution that lies beyond the test
statistic's critical value, when a score falls within this region, null hypothesis is rejected.

Statistical Power The probability of correctly rejecting a false null hypothesis.

Confidence Interval An interval of a certain width which we feel confident will

contain μ

T test A parametric inferential statistical test of the null hypothesis for a single
sample where the population variance is not known.

Student's t distribution A set of distributions that, although symmetrical and

bell-shaped, are not normally distributed.

Degrees of Freedom (df) The number of scores in a sample that are free to vary.

estimated standard error of the mean An estimate of the standard deviation of

the sampling distribution.

chi-square goodness of fit test A nonparametric inferential procedure

that determines how well an observed frequency distribution fits an expected distribution.

observed frequency The frequency with which participants fall into a category.

expected frequency The frequency expected in a category if the sample data

represent the population.