Statistics in Plain English Summary Chapter 1
Statistics in Plain English Summary Chapter 1
Statistics in Plain English Summary Chapter 1
a. A population includes every member of a category, such as all adults in the United States
or every student in a school.
i. Populations do not have to be large, just inclusive.
ii. Any value (e.g., mean, standard deviation, etc.) that is generated from or applied
to a population is called a parameter.
b. A sample is a subset of a population. For example, if I want to know the average weight
of students in a school, and I weigh some of the students, but not all, the students that I
weighed are my sample.
i. Any value that is generated from sample data is called a statistic.
a. Statistics that are calculated with sample data for the purpose of reaching some
conclusion about the population the sample is supposed to represent are called inferential
statistics.
c. A key goal of inferential statistics is to be able to generalize the results obtained from
sample data to some population, or populations, that the sample or samples represent.
a. Random sampling: Every member of the population has an equal chance of being
selected for the sample.
c. Convenience sampling: The researcher selects the sample out of convenience without
regard to how well the sample represents the population.
d. The way a sample is selected influences how well the sample represents the population,
and whether the results found in the sample will generalize to the larger population.
Generally speaking, random and representative sampling methods increase the likelihood
of the sample results generalizing to the population.
a. Any construct that has more than one value can be a variable.
V. Research designs
a. There are different types of research that employ different research designs.
d. Correlational: The researcher does not manipulate independent variables but measures
two or more variables to see how they are associated with each other.
VI. Graphs
c. There are several ways to graphically represent data. Some of the most common are line
graphs, column graphs, stacked column graphs, and pie charts.
d. It is important to pay close attention to the scale on the Y-axis of graphs as they can
sometimes be misleading.
VII. Summary
a. The statistics that are calculated and interpreted are part of a larger research process.
b. Every aspect of the research process, from how the samples were selected to how the
variables were defined and measured to the research design and how the data are
presented in graphs affect the statistics that are generated by the research and how those
statistics are interpreted.
c. It is important for you to understand the entire research process. Otherwise, it is difficult
to really understand what the statistics mean, or how trustworthy they are.