PSYC 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Statistical Significance, Fetus, Normal Distribution

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1000
• Professor: Paula Barata

Document Summary

Gpa: researcher measures second variable (y, eg. Success in graduate school: researcher statistically determines if x and y are related. Advantages of correlational studies: show strength of relationship present, can be used to make predictions about variables. Identifies real-world" associations: useful where experiments are unethical, eg. effects of alcohol on fetus among pregnant women we would never do that on a human being but we might test it on mice. Disadvantages: can"t assume cause-effect relationship exists, relationships may be due to a third unmeasured variable, correlation can show an association not a cause, correlation does not mean causation! Mean: a numerical value that represents the center of the distribution, mean = average score, you add up all the numbers then divide by the amount of numbers there are. Standard deviation: a numerical value that represents how wide the distribution is (how spread out are the scores?, standard deviation. Average distance between mean and each score.