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Block 4: Hypothesis testing
[ Page last updated 4 September 2015]
"All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!" as Eric Morecambe once said to André Prévin.
4.1 Hypothesis testing
4.2 Chi-square (for contingency tables)
4.2.1 Income differences – Statistical significance (draft only)
Demonstration, using a two-way contingency table from CROSSTABS, to test the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the earnings (from paid work) of men and women. Step-by-step procedure to produce expected cell values (E) compare them to observed values (O) and gradually build up the equation for chi-square.Follows up exercise 3.1.4.1 Income differences work-through.
4.3 Two means (t-test)
4.4 Three means (one way anova)
4.5 Regression and correlation
4.5.1 Visual aid for regression and correlation
4.6 Association, structure and cause (modelling)
The concepts and tests to be dealt with in this section are explained in the accompanying Statistical notes. They were written by Jim Ring for the original course, in as non-technical language as possible, and were aimed at students with little or no background in mathematics or statistics. For now you are referred to my recommended SPSS textbooks and to my selection of on-line SPSS intros and tutorials by others. However, there is no shortage of literature or other materials out there, especially on Youtube, Google and Wikipedia.
My original course hand-outs are very cursory as by this point there was less formal teaching and stats were demonstrated verbally and visually. My hand-outs date from 1991-92 and await conversion and updating from WordStar4 and SPSS-X on a Vax mainframe to MS Word and SPSS for Windows on a PC.
My own materials will attempt to explain, in non-mathematical language, what the research question is, what the statistical techniques are, why they are used and how to interpret the results. There will be very few, if any, equations except when they are built up from graphic explanations of what the elements of the equations are and how and why they are calculated.
Until I get round to writing all these, users with little or no knowledge (or even fear) of statistics are invited to look at the wonderful series of introductory videos from the Statistics Learning Centre. These explain basic statistical concepts in simple non-technical language and can be easily understood, not just by the business and finance students for whom they were written, but even by students in sociology, social work and the like. Anyone who can’t follow them should perhaps not be undertaking a course at any level in any discipline, let alone one designed for postgraduates and beginning researchers in the social sciences. The narration is clear, the explanations are gentle, the graphics are helpful and vibrant, and the examples are relevant to everyone, especially if you like chocolate! Start with:
Statistics Videos and Resources
Important statistical concepts: significance, strength, association, causation
Hypothesis tests, p-value - Statistics Help
Choosing which statistical test to use?
SPSS itself has a comprehensive set of statistics tutorials which can be accessed via the Statistics Coach but only if you have SPSS installed or are a user on a licenced site.
.
"All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!" as Eric Morecambe once said to André Prévin.
4.1 Hypothesis testing
4.2 Chi-square (for contingency tables)
4.2.1 Income differences – Statistical significance (draft only)
Demonstration, using a two-way contingency table from CROSSTABS, to test the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the earnings (from paid work) of men and women. Step-by-step procedure to produce expected cell values (E) compare them to observed values (O) and gradually build up the equation for chi-square.Follows up exercise 3.1.4.1 Income differences work-through.
4.3 Two means (t-test)
4.4 Three means (one way anova)
4.5 Regression and correlation
4.5.1 Visual aid for regression and correlation
4.6 Association, structure and cause (modelling)
The concepts and tests to be dealt with in this section are explained in the accompanying Statistical notes. They were written by Jim Ring for the original course, in as non-technical language as possible, and were aimed at students with little or no background in mathematics or statistics. For now you are referred to my recommended SPSS textbooks and to my selection of on-line SPSS intros and tutorials by others. However, there is no shortage of literature or other materials out there, especially on Youtube, Google and Wikipedia.
My original course hand-outs are very cursory as by this point there was less formal teaching and stats were demonstrated verbally and visually. My hand-outs date from 1991-92 and await conversion and updating from WordStar4 and SPSS-X on a Vax mainframe to MS Word and SPSS for Windows on a PC.
My own materials will attempt to explain, in non-mathematical language, what the research question is, what the statistical techniques are, why they are used and how to interpret the results. There will be very few, if any, equations except when they are built up from graphic explanations of what the elements of the equations are and how and why they are calculated.
Until I get round to writing all these, users with little or no knowledge (or even fear) of statistics are invited to look at the wonderful series of introductory videos from the Statistics Learning Centre. These explain basic statistical concepts in simple non-technical language and can be easily understood, not just by the business and finance students for whom they were written, but even by students in sociology, social work and the like. Anyone who can’t follow them should perhaps not be undertaking a course at any level in any discipline, let alone one designed for postgraduates and beginning researchers in the social sciences. The narration is clear, the explanations are gentle, the graphics are helpful and vibrant, and the examples are relevant to everyone, especially if you like chocolate! Start with:
Statistics Videos and Resources
Important statistical concepts: significance, strength, association, causation
Hypothesis tests, p-value - Statistics Help
Choosing which statistical test to use?
SPSS itself has a comprehensive set of statistics tutorials which can be accessed via the Statistics Coach but only if you have SPSS installed or are a user on a licenced site.
.
