PSYC 2360 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Type I And Type Ii Errors, Null Hypothesis, Binomial Distribution

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2360
• Professor: Mark Fenske

Document Summary

Any pattern of data that might have been caused by a true relationship between variables might instead have been caused by chance. Why research never actually proves hypothesis or theory. Calculate power to determine sample size that is needed. Compare p-value to alpha(. 05) p < . 05 p > . 05. Inferential statistics -- statistical procedures that use sample data to draw inferences. Directly testing whether a research hypothesis is correct or incorrect not achievable goal. Not possible to specify what observed data would look like if hypothesis was true. Possible to specify in statistical sense, what observed data would look like if hypothesis was not true. Sampling distribution -- distribution of all the possible values of a statistic. Binomial distribution -- distribution of correct and incorrect guesses. As sample size , extreme values are less likely to be observed. As sample size , distribution becomes narrower. Null hypothesis (h0) -- assumption that the observed data re ects only what.