Intro To Statistics

Descriptive & Inferential Statistics.

Descriptive Statistics
As implied by the name, they are used to describe the data.
These are abstractions.

What could these include?

Central tendencies (mean, median, mode), standard deviation, variance, dispersion,

etc.
Recap: what is the
alternate
hypothesis and
the null
hypothesis?
Inferential Statistics
Statistics which test causal relationships, and are able to evaluate if an effect is
significant.

They are based on probability - the uncertainty of science.

p-value
First, we are not proving our alternate hypothesis true, rather we are seeing if we have
enough evidence to believe that the null hypothesis is wrong.

Additionally, we must examine the chance of our evidence showing some pattern due
to chance.

In psychology, a commonly accepted probability of chance (think of it like risk level) is

1 in 20. It is represented by ɑ
ɑ = 0.05
Inferential Tests cont.
Our inferential statistics will output the p value.

To see if the tests was significant, we check if the p value is less than or equal to our p
value.

This has nothing to do with the actual value (magnitude) of the effect.
The normal distribution
Types of Errors