Statistical Skills

If you know what statistics can and cannot do, you may appreciate more fully the role of statistics as a tool of research and to see that it is logical, systematic, and reasonable, and not a hurdle in your path. If the data are expressed as numerical values statistics may assist you in several ways:

1. It may indicate the central point around which the data revolves.
2. It may indicate how broadly the data is spread.
3. It may show the relationship of one kind of data with another kind of data.
4. It may provide certain techniques to test the degree to which the data conform or depart from chance or approximate an anticipated standard.

In the broadest sense the goal of statistical analysis is to draw conclusions and understand more about sources of our data. More specifically, the major roles of statistical analysis are data reduction (1 and 2 above), inference (4 above), and identification of relationships (3 above).

The following basic statistical skills will be discussed with students who are then expected to become proficient with them.

1. Be able to define the term variable, descriptive, and inferential statistics.
2. Differentiate between types of variables: continuous, discrete, quantitative, and qualitative.
3. Be able to calculate possible error, and relative error when measuring in metric system.
4. Define accuracy.
5. Given a distribution of observations, be able to make graphic representations.
6. Given sets of connected variables, be able to plot a scattergram, and determine a correlation coefficient. Be able to describe the direction and magnitude of the correlation coefficient.
7. Be able to describe and use measures of central tendency: mean, mode, and median.
8. Be able to describe and use measures of dispersal or variation: range, variance, and standard deviation.
9. Describe the differences between populations' samples, parameters, and statistics.
10. Describe a normal distribution; given a distribution, calculate the standard error of the mean.
11. Describe the inferential statistics.
12. Describe three rules of probability.
13. Be able to test the difference between means using student t-tests.
14. Be familiar with basic research design and the statistical methods used in them.