Microorganism Behavior Lab Week 2 Readiness Assessment Preparation

Flashcards created from the Week 2 Microorganism Behavior Lab readiness assessment preparation notes, covering core concepts in descriptive and inferential statistics.

What is the difference between a population and a sample?

A population consists of all the individuals you want to draw conclusions about. A sample is a smaller, representative group taken from the population that you actually study.

In descriptive statistics, what is the mean?

The mean is the average, calculated by adding all the values together and dividing by the number of values.

In descriptive statistics, what is the standard deviation?

Standard deviation describes how much the data points differ from the mean. A smaller standard deviation means the values are less spread out.

What does it mean for data to be distributed normally?

Normally distributed data form a bell-shaped curve, with the mean in the center.

In a normal distribution, what percentage of data falls within $1$, $2$, and $3$ standard deviations of the mean?

About $68\%$ of data are within $1$ standard deviation, $95\%$ are within $2$, and $99\%$ are within $3$.

What is a p-value?

A p-value is the probability of getting the observed result, or a more extreme result, assuming the null hypothesis is true. It helps determine whether a result is likely due to random chance or the experimental treatment.

Which p-value is more significant, $0.05$ or $0.01$, and how does the reading define them?

$0.01$ is more significant because a smaller p-value indicates stronger significance. The reading defines $0.05$ as significant and $0.01$ as highly significant.

What inferential statistics test would you use to test the difference in the means of two groups of data?

A t-test, which compares the means of two groups of normally distributed data.

What inferential statistics test would you use to test the relationship between two continuous datasets, when one of your variables is truly independent?

Regression, which is used for relationships between continuous data when there is a true independent variable.