1.5 Statistical Analysis in Psychology AP Psychology Vocab

Descriptive statistics

Branch of statistics used to summarize and describe main points of data set

Measures of central tendency

Most important points of a dataset

Mean

Average value

Median

Middle value

Mode

Most frequent value

Variance

Shows how spread out data is by comparing it to mean

Range

Difference between biggest value and smallest value

Standard deviation

Average distance from the mean

Frequency distribution

Shows how often each value occurs

Normal distribution

Hill-shaped and symmetrical

Bimodal distribution

2 peaks

Positive skew

Curve to the right

Negative skew

Curve to the left 

Inferential statistics

Make predictions/inferences based on population based on data collected from a sample.

Statistical significance

Determines if results are based on chance or not

P-value

Tells how likely it is that the results we see are due to chance. A small version of this = stronger evidence that it’s not random

T-test

Used to compare means of 2 groups to see if they’re different from eachother.

Correlational coefficient

Shows how strongly and in which direction two variables are related.

ETHICS

Informed Consent

Getting consent from participants after explaining rules

Debriefing

Explain purpose + results of study to participants after it’s over

Confidentiality

Keeping participant’s info secure

VOCAB WORDS I FOUND IN THE CLASSROOM TEST THAT WE MAY NEED TO KNOW

Introspective Study

When someone looks inside their own mind to think about their thoughts and feelings. It's a way of understanding yourself better by reflecting on what's going on inside.

Usually a self experiment.

The social desirability bias

When people give answers or behave in ways they think will be seen positively by others, even if it's not their true opinion or behavior.

Quasi-experiment

A study that looks like an experiment but lacks random assignment of participants to groups. This makes it harder to determine cause and effect.