MA in TESOL

Course: TESOL 2002

Lecturer: SAM Chanphirun

Chapter Univariate Statistic

Daniel Muijs (2004): Doing Quantitative Research with SPSS: Chapter 6

Submitted by: Din Koldevinkea

 When doing the research, try to minimize or eliminate the errors, both Systematic Error (the
errors that are the same from one measurement to the next) and Random Error (or
Unsystematic Error; the errors that fluctuate from one measurement to the other).
 Any score we get on a test or scale will have 3 main elements: Score = True Score +
Systematic Error + Random Error.
 However, we only want True Score in our study.
 Reliability: Repeated Measurement: it has to do with our ability to measure the same thing
at different times.
 Inter-rater Reliability: the test is judged by more than one judges or raters.
 Internal Consistency Reliability?

Probability and Statistical Significance

 Sometimes the relationship found in the sample don’t exist in the population; we cannot
generalize it every time.
 We need to check the Probability Value of the relationship between the samples and the
relationship to know for sure how likely the relationship exists.
 There are 2 possible hypotheses: Null Hypothesis (there is NO relationship between the 2
variables, say the use of the reward system and the students’ performance in the population)
 For example: where we have looked at the relationship between use of reward system and
the performance of the students.
 vs Alternative Hypothesis (there is a relationship between the 2 variables)

Salary and Teachers’ Performance

Alternate Hypothesis: There is a relationship between the Salary increment and Teachers’
Performance
Null Hypothesis: There is NO relationship between the Salary increment and Teachers’
Performance
Say, your sample says that there is a Relationship, but there is not in the real population. That’s
Type 1 as you incorrectly disprove or reject the Null Hypothesis. And Type 1 is to be avoided as it
is very dangerous.

If you sample show that there is a relationship between the variables but there are not in the real-life
population, we are making Type 1 Errors.
This is important because if we recommend that study result to the government body to make
change or to use intervention, they will waste money and resource because there is NO relationship
in real life so there will be no improvement at all.
But if in our sample, we find that there is No relationship, but there is A relationship in the
population, we are making Type 2 Error. This is not very important as no intervention is being
made.
But still, we should try to avoid both of them and to minimize them is to increase the sample size.
To calculate the P Value, use SPSS.

Outliers refer to the extreme cases of a few samples. Say, most students got 70 out of 90 but a few
got 87 out of 90; that will influence the result. So if we have big sample size, the outlier doesn’t
cause any abnormality or increase the significant level.

To know if we can reject or accept the Null Hypothesis, we need to look at the Level of
Significance or Coefficient Alfa or Probability Value.
The Significant Level can be between to 1 and 0.
The smaller the Significant Level, the smaller our chance of making Type 1 Errors.
The standard cut off level is no more than 0.05 meaning that we are 95% confident that we can
reject the Null Hypothesis (and accept the Alternate Hypothesis).
If our P Value is 0.051 and above, meaning we are 94.99% or less confident, we cannot reject the
Null Hypothesis.

We say that the relationship of A and B is at 0.01 Significant Level or we are 99.99% confident that
there is a relationship between A and B.

A smaller P Value (Significance Level) doesn’t mean that we have a stronger relationship but to
simply mean that we are more confident that there is a relationship.