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Descriptive Statistics
• Preparing data for analysis
• Types of descriptive statistics
– Central tendency
– Variation
– Relative position
– Relationships
• Calculating descriptive statistics
Preparing Data for Analysis
• Issues
– Scoring procedures
– Tabulation and coding
– Use of computers
Scoring Procedures
• Instructions
– Standardized tests detail scoring instructions
– Teacher made tests require the delineation of scoring
criteria and specific procedures
• Types of items
– Selected response items - easily and objectively
scored
– Open-ended items – difficult to score objectively with
a single number as the result
Tabulation and Coding
• Tabulation is organizing data
– Identifying all relevant information to the
analysis
– Separating groups and individuals within
groups
– Listing data in columns
Tabulation and Coding
• Coding
– Assigning identification numbers to subjects
– Assigning codes to the values of non-
numerical or categorical variables
• Gender: 1=Female and 2=Male
• Subjects: 1=English, 2=Math, 3=Science, etc.
Computerized Analysis
• Need to learn how to calculate descriptive
statistics by hand
– Creates a conceptual base for understanding the
nature of each statistic
– Exemplifies the relationships among statistical
elements of various procedures
• Use of computerized software
– SPSS Windows
– Other software packages
Descriptive Statistics
• Purpose – to describe or summarize data
in a parsimonious manner
• Four types
– Central tendency
– Variability
– Relative position
– Relationships
Descriptive Statistics
• Graphing data – a
frequency polygon
– Vertical axis
represents the
frequency with which a
score occurs
– Horizontal axis
represents the scores
themselves
Central Tendency
• Purpose – to represent the typical score
attained by subjects
• Three common measures
– Mode
– Median
– Mean
Central Tendency
• Mode
– The most frequently occurring score
– Appropriate for nominal data
• Median
– The score above and below which 50% of all scores
lie (i.e., the mid-point)
– Characteristics
• Appropriate for ordinal scales
• Doesn’t take into account the value of each and every score
in the data
Central Tendency
• Mean
– The arithmetic average of all scores
– Characteristics
• Advantageous statistical properties
• Affected by outlying scores
• Most frequently used measure of central tendency
– Formula
Variability
• Purpose – to measure the extent to which
scores are spread apart
• Four measures
– Range
– Quartile deviation
– Variance
– Standard deviation
Variability
• Range
– The difference between the highest and
lowest score in a data set
– Characteristics
• Unstable measure of variability
• Rough, quick estimate
Variability
• Quartile deviation
– One-half the difference between the upper
and lower quartiles in a distribution
– Characteristic - appropriate when the
median is being used
Variability
• Variance
– The average squared deviation of all
scores around the mean
– Characteristics
• Many important statistical properties
• Difficult to interpret due to “squared” metric
– Formula
Variability
• Standard deviation
– The square root of the variance
– Characteristics
• Many important statistical properties
• Relationship to properties of the normal curve
• Easily interpreted
– Formula
The Normal Curve
• Z-score (continued)
– Possible to calculate relative standings like
the percent better than a score, the percent
falling between two scores, the percent
falling between the mean and a score, etc.
– Formula
Measures of Relative Position
• Inferential statistics
– Allow researchers to generalize to a population of
individuals based on information obtained from a
sample of those individuals
– Assesses whether the results obtained from a
sample are the same as those that would have
been calculated for the entire population
• Probabilistic nature of inferential analyses
Underlying Concepts
• Sampling distributions
• Standard error
• Null and alternative hypotheses
• Tests of significance
• Type I and Type II errors
• One-tailed and two-tailed tests
• Degrees of freedom
• Tests of significance
Sampling Distributions
• Correct decisions
– The null hypothesis is true and it is accepted
– The null hypothesis is false and it is rejected
• Incorrect decisions
– Type I error - the null hypothesis is true and it is
rejected
– Type II error – the null hypothesis is false and it is
accepted
Type I and Type II Errors
• Multiple regression
– Correlational technique which uses
multiple predictor variables to predict a
single criterion variable
– Characteristics
• Increased predictability with additional variables
• Regression coefficients
• Regression equations
Specific Statistical Tests