week4 descriptive stats and normal distribution

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms and concepts related to psychological research methods, particularly focusing on descriptive statistics, measures of central tendency, dispersion, and normal distribution.

Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that summarize or describe the characteristics of a data set.

Measures of Central Tendency

Values that indicate the center of a data distribution, including mean, median, and mode.

Mean

The average value calculated by adding all scores and dividing by the number of scores.

Median

The middle value of a data set when arranged in rank order.

Mode

The most frequently occurring value in a data set.

Measures of Dispersion

Statistics that describe the spread or variation in a data set, including range and standard deviation.

Range

The difference between the maximum and minimum scores in a data set.

Standard Deviation (SD)

A measure of the average amount of variation or dispersion from the mean in a data set.

Central Limit Theorem (CLT)

The principle that the sampling distribution of the sample mean approaches a normal distribution as sample size increases.

Normal Distribution

A symmetric, bell-shaped distribution that is characterized by the mean and standard deviation.

Hypothesis Testing

A method used in inferential statistics to determine if a hypothesis about a population is supported by sample data.

Inferential Statistics

Statistics that allow conclusions to be drawn about a population based on sample data.

Visual Inspection Methods

Techniques such as histograms and Q-Q plots used to assess the normality of data visually.

Shapiro-Wilk Test

A statistical test that checks whether a data set is normally distributed, best for small to medium samples.

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

A test that compares the empirical distribution of a data set with a normal distribution, used for larger samples.