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1.3 Psychology Statistics: AP Psychology Mr. Loomis

This document provides an overview of key concepts in psychology statistics including: 1) Measures of central tendency like the mean, median, and mode used to describe data. 2) Measures of variation such as standard deviation and range that quantify how scores are spread. 3) The normal distribution and properties like 68-95-99 rule and how it relates to z-scores and percentiles. 4) Skewed distributions that are lopsided and affect measures of central tendency.

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David Achilles Damien
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131 views27 pages

1.3 Psychology Statistics: AP Psychology Mr. Loomis

This document provides an overview of key concepts in psychology statistics including: 1) Measures of central tendency like the mean, median, and mode used to describe data. 2) Measures of variation such as standard deviation and range that quantify how scores are spread. 3) The normal distribution and properties like 68-95-99 rule and how it relates to z-scores and percentiles. 4) Skewed distributions that are lopsided and affect measures of central tendency.

Uploaded by

David Achilles Damien
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

3 Psychology Statistics

AP Psychology
Mr. Loomis
Descriptive Statistics
• Definition…
• Describe a set of data

• Measures of Central Tendency


• Measures of Variation
• Skewed Distributions
Measures of Central Tendency
• Mean
– Average score
– Extreme scores have a greater impact on the mean than
on the mode or median
• Median
– Score that divides a frequency distribution exactly in
half, so that the same number of scores lie on each side
(middle)
• Mode
– Most frequently occurring score (bimodal)
Measures of Variation
• Definition
– Measure of variation in a single score that presents
info about the spread of scores in a variation
• Range – highest minus the lowest
• Standard Deviation – a standard measurement of
how much the scores in a distribution deviate
from the mean
– The most widely used measure of variation
• Z-score (standard score) – the distance of a score
from the mean in units of standard deviation
Normal Distribution
• Form a bell-shaped or symmetrical curve
Normal Distribution
• The percentage of scores that fall at or above
the mean is 50…the percentage that fall below
(or at) the mean is also 50
Normal Distribution
• On-third of the scores fall one standard
deviation below the mean and on-third fall
one standard deviation above the mean
• Example…Wechsler IQ Tests
– Mean = 100 / Standard Deviation = 15
– One-third score 85-100
– Another third score 100-115
68-95-99.7 Rule
• 68% of scores fall within one SD
• 95% of scores fall within two SD
• 99.7% of scores fall within three SD
Percentile
• Distance of a score from “0”
• Examples
– 90th percentile – score better than 90%
– 38th percentile – score better than 38%
Skewed Distributions
Skewed Distributions
• Positively Skewed Distributions
• Contain a preponderance of scores on the low
end of the scale (looks like “P” lying on back
• Mean is higher than the median
– Thus the median is a better representation of
central tendency in positively skewed distributions
Skewed Distributions
• Negatively Skewed Distributions
• Contain a preponderance of scores on the
high end of the scale
• Mean is lower than median
– Thus the median is a better representation of
central tendency in a negatively skewed
distribution
Inferential Statistics
• Key points…
• Most experiments are conducted with a small
sample of subjects
• Psychologists want to generalize the results from
their small sample to a larger population
• IS are used to determine how likely it is that a
study’s outcome is due to chance and whether
the outcome can be legitimately generalized to
the larger population from the sample selected
The P-Value
• Probability of concluding that a difference exists
when in fact this difference does not exist
• A statistically significant difference is a difference
not likely due to chance (shows up 5% of the time
or less)
• Smaller the p-value, the more significant the
results
• Can never be “0” (researchers can never be 100%
certain the results did not occur by chance)

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