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20 views

Sem Notes

Uploaded by

523655
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Standard Error

for
AP Biology
Statistics are helpful to better understand
the meaning of a sample data set

What do these numbers actually MEAN?


Data analysis allows you to…
• Arrive at conclusions about your data
• Make claims about your data
• Support arguments using your data
• Estimate the reliability of your data
• Effectively communicate conclusions about
your work to a larger scientific community
Appropriate descriptive statistics
for a data set typically include:

• Mean (average)
• Sample size
• Standard deviation
• Standard error
Mean (average)
• Sum of the numbers in the sample divided by
the total number in the sample
• Summarizes the entire sample
• Might provide an estimate of the entire
population’s (that was sampled) true mean
Sample mean = 98.25 degrees F
Sample size
• How many members of the population are
included in the study
• Important when determining confidence that
analysis of sample set is representative of
entire population
• In formulas, sample size = n
Sample size= 130
Standard deviation
• Tool for measuring the spread (variance) in
the sample population
• Large standard deviation indicates that the
data have a lot of variability
• Small standard deviation indicates that the
data are clustered close to the sample mean
You do NOT have to
calculate this on the
AP Biology Exam, but
you should understand
how it is derived and used.
Large standard deviation Small standard deviation
(spread out from mean) (clustered close to mean)
Standard deviation = 0.73 deg. F
Standard Error
• Allows you to infer how well the sample mean
matches up to the true population mean
• Helps you to determine confidence in the data
collected in a sample
• 95% confidence interval = ± 2 SE
(Random sampling of the population should produce a mean
that falls within ± 2 SE 95% of the time.)
You do NOT have to
calculate this on the
AP Biology Exam, but
you should understand
how it is derived and used.
Standard error = 0.06 deg. F
What does this tell us about the data set?
• Sample mean = 98.25°F
• Standard error = 0.06°F
• Sample mean ±2 SE = 98.25 ± 0.12°F
• 95% confidence interval = 98.13 to 98.37°F
• The range for the sample mean does NOT
include the commonly accepted population
mean body temperature of 98.6°F
• This suggests that there is a statistically
significant difference between the mean of
this sample and the mean of the entire
population
Example Problem
A student noticed that the ivy leaves growing on
the shady side of a building were larger than ivy
leaves growing on the sunny side of the same
building. The student collected and measured
the maximum width, in centimeters, of 30
leaves from each habitat. Use statistical analysis
to determine if it’s likely that there is a
significant difference in leaf size between the
shady and sunny ivy plants with 95% confidence
(±2 SE).
Collected Data
Collected Data

2 SE 0.60 0.48
95% confidence
Collected Data
Graph Mean

2 SE 0.60 0.48
Graph Means
8

7
7.43
6

5
5.88
4 Shady
Sunny
3

0
Leaf Habitat
Collected Data

2 SE 0.60 0.48
Add ± 2 SE Error Bars
Add ± 2 SE Error Bars
9
8
7
6
7.43 ± 0.60
5
Shady
4 5.88 ± 0.48 Sunny
3
2
1
0
Leaf Habitat
Conclusions
• ±2 SE Error bars (95% confidence intervals)
do NOT overlap between sunny and shady
means (7.43 - 0.60 > 5.88 + 0.48; 6.83 > 6.36)
• Strongly suggests that the two populations
are indeed statistically significantly different
from one another
If the error bars/confidence intervals did overlap
between the groups, you could not claim a
statistically significant difference.

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