Agenda for January 27 th Administrative Items/Announcements Attendance Handout: presentation signup Pictures today! Finish this week’s topic: Research Methods Methods exercises

Statistics Statistical analyses used to quantify strength of association between variables Involves the use of mathematics to organize, summarize, and interpret numerical data

Descriptive Statistics Used to organize and summarize data Provide an overview of numerical data Two main components: Central Tendency Variance

Central Tendency Three components to understanding the typical or average score median mean mode

Median Score that falls exactly in the center of the distribution of scores Half of the scores fall above the median and half fall below the median

Mean Arithmetic average of the scores in the distribution

Mode the most frequent score in the distribution

Variance How much the scores in the data set vary from each other and the mean Standard Deviation - index of the amount of variability in a set of data

Inferential Statistics Used to evaluate the probability that results might be due to chance

Statistical Significance Statistical significance - when low probability that observed findings are due to chance Very low usually means less than 5 chances in 100