PSYC 217 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Null Hypothesis, Statistical Inference
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Vocabulary: alpha level: in statistical analysis, the maximum probability that a result-having been declared significant by exceeding this value- has actually come from the null hypothesis sampling distribution. F is the ratio of systematic variance to error variance. Inferential statistics: using samples to make inferences about people. As we know, the results of a study are based on the data obtained from a sample of research parti(cid:272)ipa(cid:374)ts. Inferential statistics are a way to help us infer whether a difference in samples means reflects a true different in the population means. Of (cid:272)ourse, these are(cid:374)"t perfe(cid:272)t they have been criticized: the stats allow us to arrive at conclusions in an objective way. Having equivalent groups is i(cid:373)porta(cid:374)t a(cid:374)d it"s a(cid:272)hie(cid:448)ed (cid:271)(cid:455) e(cid:454)peri(cid:373)e(cid:374)tall(cid:455) (cid:272)o(cid:374)trolli(cid:374)g all other (cid:448)aria(cid:271)les and random assignment and/or repeated measures. Only when all groups are experimentally equal can we determine that any changes between the groups is caused by the independent variable.
