SOC 3811 Social Statistics Review for Exam #2

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms and definitions from the lecture on social statistics, which students can use for review in preparation for their exam.

Standardized Score

A score with a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1, used to compare scores from different distributions.

Z-score

A statistical measurement that describes a value's relation to the mean of a group of values, expressed in terms of standard deviations.

Central Limit Theorem

A theorem stating that the sampling distribution of the sample mean will approach a normal distribution as the sample size increases, regardless of the population's distribution.

Confidence Interval

A range of values derived from a sample statistic that is likely to contain the population parameter, with a specified level of confidence (e.g., 95%).

Type I Error

The error made when rejecting a true null hypothesis, commonly referred to as a false positive.

Null Hypothesis (H0)

The hypothesis that there is no effect or no difference, which the researcher seeks to test against.

Research Hypothesis (H1)

The hypothesis that there is an effect or a difference, representing the researcher's prediction.

Sampling Distribution

The probability distribution of a given statistic based on a random sample.

Standard Error

The standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic, indicating the variability of sample estimates.

ANOVA

Analysis of variance, a statistical method used to test differences between two or more group means.

Bonferroni Correction

A statistical adjustment made to P-values when several dependent or independent tests are being conducted simultaneously.

Degrees of Freedom (df)

The number of values in a calculation that are free to vary, often related to the sample size.

Critical Value

A threshold that determines the cutoff for rejecting the null hypothesis in hypothesis testing.

Probability of Type I Error (alpha)

The probability of incorrectly rejecting the null hypothesis, typically set at 0.05.

Effect Size

A quantitative measure of the magnitude of a phenomenon; it provides a scale of how meaningful a result is.

Two-tailed test

A hypothesis test that checks for any significant difference in either direction from the hypothesized parameter.

One-tailed test

A hypothesis test that checks for a significant difference in only one direction from the hypothesized parameter.