Populations v. Samples Parameters vs.

Statistics Summation and Notation Variability

Populations v. Samples
Population all the scores of a specified group
Examples

Sample a subset of a population

Examples
Randomly selected sample? A representative sample? Radford Student Sample (n = 33) Radford Student Population (N = 9,552) Why do social scientists primarily study samples?

Parameters v. Statistics
Parameters
A numerical (number) or nominal (name) characteristics of a population Remains constant as long as population does not change, hard to compute
Example

Statistics
A numerical (number) or nominal (name) characteristic of a sample May differ from one sample to the next sample, thus may have to take several samples to get an accurate statistic
Example

Summation and Notation

= represents sum = represents population mean X = represents sample mean 2 = represents population variance s2 = represents sample variance N = number of units/persons in the population n = number of units/persons in the sample

Measures of Central Tendency

Notation for sample and population means
X =
____

x=

____

N n - Where X represents the number of values

Notation for Median

Median location (where is the middle score?) N +1
__________

Rules of Algebraic Order

1. 2. 3. 4. ( ) Exponentiation (ex: 42) X and/or / + and/or -

A Data set to Practice

X in a dataset represents the independent variable level (if applicable) Y in a dataset represents the dependent variable

A Data set to Practice

Make up another hypotheses for study 1 It is expected that individuals who report higher levels of confidence (X) in correctly identifying Coke or Pepsi will be more likely to accurately detect the correct cola product (Y). Data set Participant # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X (level of confidence 1 to 5, 1 low to 5 high confidence) 3 5 5 4 2 1 3 2 5 4 Y (accurately detect percent) 50 100 75 75 25 25 50 25 100 75

Complete the following operations

X = sum of all scores X2 = sum of all squared scores ( X)2 = sum of all scores squared Y= Y2 = ( Y)2 =

Measures of Variability (dispersion)

Range the width of our data set Variability Standard Deviation

What is the range for the independent and dependent variables in the data set?
The range is the highest score minus the lowest score. Thus, Range = X maximum X minimum Problem: - does not consider EVERY value in the data set

Variance
Mathematically assess the total amount of variability in a data set by directly considering EVERY observation. Use the Mean Deviation:
(X x )2 where X is the observation and x is the mean for the sample Answer gives us the total variance for a variable in our data set Try calculating the mean deviation for X and Y in the fictional data set.

Variance
Now, take the total variance for each variable and divide by n-1 to get the average variance for the variable in this sample, or s

To get the standard deviation, take the square root of s, or s

If we were working with a population, we would divide the total variance number by what? This would provide average variance for the population, or 2

Complete the operation for sample variance for dependent variable:

s2 = Y2 ( Y)2 n___ n1
Dont worry about this equation for the quiz

The standard deviation provides us with a statistically meaningful measure of variability that can be used to determine the distance our observations are away from the mean (remember the normal curve) The greater the standard deviation, the further our observations are away from the mean