Statistical Glossary

  • Categorical variable
    A qualitative variable that can have two or more non-numerical values. There are two types of categorical variables: nominal and ordinal.
  • Nominal variable
    Categories with no natural order, like a color variable with three possible values: ["Red", "Blue", "Green"].
  • Ordinal variable
    A categorical variable where you can order the possible values, such as the following Likert scale: ["Strongly Disagree", "Disagree", "Neither Agree nor Disagree", "Agree", "Strongly Agree"].
  • Numerical variable
    Quantitative data, continuous variable or discrete variable.
  • Coefficient of Variation (CV)
    A standardized measure of dispersion, representing the ratio between the standard deviation and the mean.
  • Confidence level
    The confidence level represents the level of certainty that the true value of the parameter will be within the confidence interval
  • Dichotomous variable
    A special case of the categorical variable with only two possible values, like True/False, Yes/No, Success/Failure.
  • Continuous variable
    A numeric variable with an infinite number of values. Between any two values, you have more values. For example, between 0.01 and 0.02 you have 0.011).
  • Interval scale
    There is a meaning for the distances between the values but not for the ratio between the values. For example, in degrees Celsius, increasing the temperature from 40°C to 60°C is double the increase from 40°C to 50°C, but 60°C is not twice as hot as 30°C.
  • Ratio scale
    Like interval scale, there is a meaning for the distances between the values and also for the ratio between the values, there is a meaning to the zero. For example, a duration of 60 minutes is twice as long as a duration of 30 minutes.
  • CDF
    Cumulative Distribution Function, F(x)=P(X≤x).
  • PDF
    Probability Density Function, which describes the likelihood of obtaining a specific value for a continuous random variable. The area under the PDF curve between x1 and x2 represents the probability of obtaining a value within that range. The total area under the PDF curve is equal to 1.
  • PMF
    Probability Mass Function, of obtaining a specific value for a discrete random variable. It is defined as F(x)=P(X=x), which is the equivalent of the PDF for continuous random variables."
  • Mean
    The mean is a value that represents the middle of a set of numbers.
    Usually, the mean refers to to the arithmetic mean or arithmetic average.
  • Sample data
    usually we don't have the data of the entire population, a random sample data represent the entire population.
  • Sample average
    The average of the sample data.
  • Standard deviation (σ)
    The standard deviation is a statistic that measures the data variability. It is derived from the square root of the distances between each value in the population and the population's mean squared.
  • Sample standard deviation (S)
    The standard deviation of the sample data, the calculation is the same as for the standard deviation, but to get an unbias estimation of the standard deviation, the division is by (n - 1) instead of n.
    S2 =Σ(𝑥i - x̄)2
    n-1
  • Sphericity
    Equal variance of the differences between the treatments (groups).
  • Standard Error (SE)
    The standard deviation of a statistic.
  • Standard Error of the Mean (SEM)
    The standard deviation of the mean. If you know the standard deviation: SEM=σ/√n. If you estimate the standard deviation: SEM=S/√n
  • Type I error
    Rejecting a correct null assumption (H0).
  • Type II error
    Failing to reject an incorrect null assumption (H0).
  • Power
    The statistical power is the probability that a test will reject an incorrect H0 for a defined effect size. Researchers usually use a priori power of 0.8. More
  • P-value
    The probability to get the sample results, or more extreme results, under the assumption that the null assumption (H0) is correct, when the p-value is very small, p-value ≤ significance level (α), you should reject the null assumption.
  • Significance level (α)
    The maximum chance allowed rejecting H0 while H0 is correct, the maximum probability of Type1 Error. significance level of 0.05 is commonly used, but if the price of rejecting a correct null assumption is big, you may use a smaller value like 0.01. The test result is significant when p-value is not bigger than the significance level.
  • Surprisal
    The measure of how unexpected an event is. For instance, if the surprisal value is 4, it means that the probability of that event occurring is equivalent to getting 4 consecutive heads when flipping a fair coin.
    When reporting the results of a statistical test, you may report the surprisal of the p-value, which is calculated as S-value = -log2(p-value).
Statskingdom glossary
  • Effect
    When you choose the Effect the tool determines the Effect type and the Effect size. Ignore this field if you know the required Effect type and the Effect size. If you do not know what to do, use Medium effect
  • Effect Type
  • Effect Size
    The expected effect that the test should detect.
    Any change in Effect will change this value!
    You may override this value.
  • Rounding
    When the number is bigger than one the calculator rounds to the required decimal places, but when the number is smaller than one, it rounds to the required significant figures
    For example, when you choose 2, it will format 88.1234 to 88.12 , and 0.001234 to 0.0012.