Sociology 2206A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Frequency Analysis, Descriptive Statistics, Statistical Significance
8 Jan 2020
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Soci 2206: quantitative data analysis quantitative research collects numerical data to: answer a research question or test a hypothesis (support or contradict) interprets data with statistics tests for significance: Likelihood that an observed relationship is not caused by random chance but real effect. Calculate by computer, but understand the basics. Statistics: 2 types: descriptive statistics, inferential statistics. Main purposes: describe and summarize data, make predictions or generalizations from observations, identify associations, relationships, or differences among groups. The observation is likely the result of real effect, not chance. Population: all members of a particular group of interest. Sample: subset of the population that is studied. Variable: anything that has a quantity or quality that varies. Held constant in order to test the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Nominal: the attributes are merely different from each other. Ordinal: categories you can rank order along some dimension. Interval and ratio: attributes are rank ordered, and have equal distances between adjacent attributes.
