Psychological Statistics Exam Review Notes

A collection of flashcards to help review key vocabulary terms and concepts in Psychological Statistics related to the upcoming exam.

Population

The complete set of individuals or items that you are interested in studying.

Sample

A subset of the population that is selected for study.

Parameter

A numerical characteristic of a population.

Statistic

A numerical characteristic of a sample.

Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that summarize data from a sample using indexes such as the mean or standard deviation.

Inferential Statistics

Statistics that allow making inferences about the population from which the sample was drawn.

Nominal Scale

A scale that categorizes data without any quantitative value.

Ordinal Scale

A scale that categorizes data with a fixed order or ranking.

Interval Scale

A scale with ordered categories that have equal intervals but no true zero point.

Ratio Scale

A scale with ordered categories, equal intervals, and an absolute zero.

Correlation

A measure that indicates the extent to which two variables are related.

Causation

A relationship where one event is affected by another event.

Independent Variable

The variable that is manipulated in an experiment.

Dependent Variable

The variable that is measured in an experiment.

Control Condition

The condition that does not receive the experimental treatment.

Experimental Condition

The condition that receives the treatment being tested.

Frequency Distribution

A summary of how often different values occur within a dataset.

Central Tendency

A measure that represents the center point of a dataset, often described by the mean, median, and mode.

Mean

The average value of a dataset, calculated as the sum of all scores divided by the number of scores.

Median

The middle value in an ordered dataset.

Mode

The most frequently occurring value in a dataset.

Standard Deviation

A measure of the dispersion or spread of a set of values.

Z-score

A measure that describes a value's relation to the mean of a group of values.

Sampling Error

The error that arises when a sample does not represent the population from which it was drawn.