Statistcis for everyone - Fairfield University
Statistics for Everyone, Student Handout
Part 1: Statistics as a Tool in Scientific Research: Review of Summarizing and Graphically Representing Data and Introduction to SPSS (v18 PASW)
To choose the appropriate statistical test, you need to consider what type of research question you are asking and what type of data you are measuring
A. Types of Research Questions
Descriptive (What does X look like?)
Correlational (Is there an association between X and Y? As X increases, what does Y do?)
Experimental (Do changes in X cause changes in Y?)
B. Types of Data: Measurement Scales
Categorical:
Nominal (name/label): numbers are arbitrary; e.g., 1= male, 2 = female; blood type (A, B, AB, O)
Ordinal (rank order): numbers have order (i.e., more or less) but you do not know how much more or less; 1st place runner was faster but you do not know how much faster than 2nd place runner; e.g., Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 melanoma
Numerical:
Interval (equal intervals): numbers have order and equal intervals so you know how much more or less; A temperature of 102 is 2 points higher than one of 100; e.g., IQ
Ratio (equal intervals and absolute zero): same as interval but because there is an absolute zero you can talk meaningfully about twice as much and half as much; Weighing 200 pounds is twice as heavy as 100 pounds; e.g., # of white blood cells; miles per gallon
Entering Data into SPSS:
You will need to specify the following for each variable:
• Name of the variable
• Type of data: Numerical or String
• Type of measure: Nominal, Ordinal, Scale (Interval or Ratio)
• Labels or units
C. Two Major Types of Statistical Procedures
Descriptive: Organize and summarize data
Inferential: Draw inferences about the relations between variables; Use samples to generalize to population
D. Ways to Summarize and Describe Your Data
The first step is ALWAYS getting to know your data: Summarize and visualize your data!
It is a big mistake to just throw numbers into the computer and look at the output of a statistical test without any idea what those numbers are trying to tell you or without checking if the assumptions for the test are met.
Think about what type of data you have (categorical or numerical) so you can determine the best way to summarize and represent your data
Assuming that numerical data is collected from different treatments/groups, one would get the following summaries for each treatment/group:
Numerical Summaries: Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Variability, Representing numerical summaries in tables
Graphical Summaries: Bar graphs of means/Mean Plots, Histograms, Boxplots
E. Choosing the Appropriate Type of Graph
|Type of variable |Example |Type of graph |
|One categorical variable | Political party |Bar Chart or Pie Graph |
|Two categorical variables* |Political party vs. Gender |Side-by-side Bar Chart |
|One numerical variable |Height |Histogram, Boxplot |
|One numerical variable and one categorical |Height vs. Gender |Side-by-side Histograms, Boxplots, Bar graphs |
|variable* | |of Means |
|Two paired numerical variables* |Weight vs. Exercise per week |Scatterplot |
|One numerical variable over time |Number of Cells vs. Minutes |Times Series Plot |
*Note: With 2 variables, one variable may be treated as the dependent variable and one variable may be treated as the independent variable.
See separate handouts on how to create bar charts, pie graphs, histograms, time series plots, and scatterplots using SPSS or Excel.
F. Other Issues to Consider in Summarizing and Graphically Representing Data
Shapes of Distribution
Normal = most scores in center, tapering off symmetrically in both tails (bell-shaped curve)
Kurtosis is a measure of the “peakedness” or “flatness” of a distribution; SPSS computes value
A kurtosis value near 0 indicates a distribution shape close to normal.
A negative kurtosis indicates a shape flatter than normal.
A positive value indicates more peaked than normal.
An extreme kurtosis (e.g., |k| > 5.0) indicates a distribution where more of the values are in the tails of the distribution than around the mean.
Skewness measures the extent to which a distribution deviates from symmetry around the mean; SPSS computes value
A value of 0 represents a symmetric or evenly balanced distribution (i.e., a normal distribution).
A positive/right skewness indicates a greater number of smaller values (peak is to the left, tail is longer on high end/right).
A negative/negative skewness indicates a greater number of larger values (peak is to the right, tail is longer on the low end/left).
Bimodal distribution: two peaks
Rectangular/Uniform: all scores (high and low) occur with equal frequency
Potential Outlier: An observation that is well above or below the overall bulk of the data
G. Assessing Normality
It is important to determine shape of distribution (is it normal [bell shaped] or skewed) so you can choose appropriate measures of descriptive statistics (i.e., central tendency and variability) and choose appropriate inference methods (i.e., hypothesis tests)
Method 1: Make a histogram of numerical data and compare with normal curve, Check if the histogram is unimodal and symmetric, bell-shaped
Method 2: Kurtosis and skewness values are between +1 is considered excellent, but a value between +2 is acceptable in many analyses in the life sciences. SPSS will calculate both kurtosis and skewness.
Method 3: Conduct a hypothesis test for normality
• Shapiro-Wilk (n2000)
Ho: Data come from a population with a normal distribution
Ha: Data do not come from a population with a normal distribution
So if p-value < .05, conclude the distribution is not normal
More details are given in the “Handout for Getting Descriptive Statistics and Graphing in SPSS”.
H. Measures of Central Tendency
Central tendency = Typical or representative value of a group of scores
|Measure |Definition |Takes Every Value Into Account? |When to Use |
|Mean |Average score |Yes |Numerical data |
| |M = ( X / N | |BUT… Can be heavily influenced by outliers |
| | | |so can give inaccurate view if distribution |
| | | |is not (approximately) symmetric |
|Median |Middle value; score at 50th percentile; |No |Ordinal data or for numerical data that are |
| |half the scores are at or above, half are | |skewed |
| |at or below | | |
|Mode |Most frequently occurring data value |No |Nominal data |
I. Quartiles
Quartiles= divide a data set into 4 equal parts
First Quartile = Q1 = 25th percentile
Second Quartile = Q2 = Median = 50th percentile
Third Quartile = Q3 = 75th percentile
Fourth Quartile = Q4 = 100th percentile
Interquartile range = IQR = Score at 75th percentile – Score at 25th percentile; The range of the middle half of the scores
Relation between the Quartiles and the Boxplot
• Box is formed by Q1, Median and Q3
• Whiskers extend to the smallest and largest observations that are not outliers
• Extreme outliers lie outside the interval
Q1 – 3*IQR and Q3+ 3*IQR (denoted by *)
• Mild outliers lie outside of the interval
Q1 – 1.5*IQR and Q3 + 1.5*IQR (denoted by o)
J. Measures of Dispersion
Variability = extent to which scores in a distribution differ from each other; are spread out
|Measure |Definition |Takes Every Value Into Account? |When to Use |
|Range |Highest – lowest score |No, only based on two most extreme |To give crude measure of spread |
| | |values | |
|Standard Deviation |68% of the data fall within 1 SD of the |Yes, but describes majority |For numerical data that are approximately |
| |mean (M ( SD) | |symmetric or normal |
|Interquartile Range |Middle 50% of the data fall within the IQR |No, but describes most |For ordinal data or for when numerical |
| | | |data are skewed |
K. Presenting Measures of Central Tendency and Variability in Text
Sentences should always be grammatical and sensible. Do not just list a bunch of numbers. Use the statistical information to supplement what you are saying.
For example:
The number of fruit flies observed each day ranged from 0 to 57 (M = 25.32, SD = 5.08).
Plants exposed to moderate amounts of sunlight were taller (M = 6.75 cm, SD = 1.32) than plants exposed to minimal sunlight (M = 3.45 cm, SD = 0.95).
L. Presenting Measures of Central Tendency and Variability in Tables
Be sure to include the unit of measurement; Might want to include column for sample size (N)
|Symmetric Data |Range |M |SD |
|Number of Fruit Flies |0 to 57 |25.32 |5.08 |
|Weight (lbs) |118 to 208 |160.31 |10.97 |
|Response time to Patient’s Call |0 to 8 |2.1 |.8 |
|(mins) | | | |
|Skewed Data |Range |Median |IQR |
|Number of Fruit Flies |0 to 57 |27 |9 |
|Weight (lbs) |118 to 208 |155.6 |12 |
|Response time to patient’s call |0 to 8 |1.5 |1 |
|(mins) | | | |
M. What’s the Difference Between SD and SE?
Sometimes instead of standard deviation (SD), people report the standard error of the mean (SE or SEM) in text, tables, and figures. Use the one that makes sense for your research question. Are you describing one data set only (SD) or generalizing to the population (SE)?
Standard deviation (SD) = “Average” deviation of individual scores around mean of scores; describes the spread of one sample
Standard error (SE = SD/(N) = How much on average sample means would vary if you sampled more than once from the same population (we do not expect the particular mean we got to be an exact reflection of the population mean); Used to describe the spread of all possible sample means and used to make inference about the population mean
N. Other Issues to Be Aware Of
Dangers of low N: With a small sample size, data may not be representative of the population at large and you should take care in drawing conclusions
Dangers of Outliers: Be sure you look for outliers (extreme values) in your data and justify appropriate strategies for dealing with them (e.g., eliminating data because the researcher assumes it is a mistake instead of part of the natural variability in the population = subjective science)
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