Statistics for Kinesiology

Statistics

The collection of information (data) and the methods used to analyze them; a discipline often described as 'the science of making an educated guess.'

Data

The result of measurement.

Evaluation

The philosophical process of determining the worth of data.

Reliability

The consistency of a measurement or assessment.

Objective

Free from bias.

Subjective

Incorporating bias.

Variable

A characteristic that can assume more than one value.

Constant

A characteristic that can only assume one value.

Observational research

Research that involves passive collection of data or self-reported data.

Experimental research

Research that involves active intervention and control.

Validity

The appropriateness of the test in measuring what it is designed to measure.

Internal validity

A measure of the control within the experiment to ensure that results are due to the intervention.

External validity

The ability to generalize the sample results to the population of interest.

Population

A collection of ALL subjects/things of interest that share more than one characteristic.

Sample

A subset of the population of interest.

Population parameter

Any measure/characteristic computed for a population.

Sample statistics

Any measure/characteristic computed for a sample.

Sampling error

The difference between a population parameter and a sample statistic.

Random Sample

A scientifically drawn group that possesses the same characteristics as the population.

Nominal data

Data that allows for distinctions between categories qualitatively but lacks quantitative ordering.

Ordinal data

Data that has a logical, meaningful order or rank but lacks known numerical distances between categories.

Interval data

Numerical values where intervals of equal length represent equal differences, but without a true zero.

Ratio data

Data that allows for identification of absolute differences with an absolute/true zero.

Frequency distribution

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

Histogram

A graph showing the frequency of continuous data, represented by bars touching each other.

Bar graph

A graph showing frequency with bars that do not touch each other, representing discrete data.

Cumulative frequency

A distribution where each new data point is the sum of previous data points.

Outliers

Data points that do not fit the expected distribution pattern.