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Inferential Statistics

The document explains the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics summarize data from a specific sample without uncertainty, while inferential statistics use sample data to make generalizations about a larger population. Inferential statistics involves estimating parameters and conducting hypothesis tests to draw conclusions about research questions.

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8 views

Inferential Statistics

The document explains the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics summarize data from a specific sample without uncertainty, while inferential statistics use sample data to make generalizations about a larger population. Inferential statistics involves estimating parameters and conducting hypothesis tests to draw conclusions about research questions.

Uploaded by

chukwuemekaarum
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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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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

Descriptive statistics

– Descriptive statistics describe a sample.


– You simply take a group that you’re interested in, record data
about the group members, and then use summary statistics and
graphs to present the group properties.
– With descriptive statistics, there is no uncertainty because you are
describing only the people or items that you actually measure.
– You’re not trying to infer properties about a larger population.
Example of descriptive
statistics
– Suppose we want to describe the test scores in a specific class
of 30 students. We record all of the test scores and calculate
the summary statistics and produce graphs
Statistics Class value
Mean 79.18
Range 66.21-96.53
– Collectively, this information gives us a pretty good
picture of this specific class. There is no uncertainty
surrounding these statistics because we gathered the
scores for everyone in the class. However, we can’t take
these results and extrapolate to a larger population of
students.
Inferential statistics

– Inferential statistics describe the many ways in which statistics


derived from observations on samples from study populations
can be used to deduce whether or not those populations are
truly different.
– Inferential statistics takes data from a sample and makes
inferences about the larger population from which the sample
was drawn.
– Because the goal of inferential statistics is to draw
conclusions from a sample and generalize them to a
population, we need to have confidence that our sample
accurately reflects the population.
– This requirement affects our process.
– At a broad level, we must do the following:

– Define the population we are studying.


– Draw a representative sample from that population.
– Use analyses that incorporate the sampling error.
– A large number of statistical tests can be used for this
purpose.
– which test is used depends on the type of data being
analyzed and the number of groups involved.
– In medicine generally, we are often concerned with drug
effects and whether or not a new drug is as effective as a
currently available treatment. Studies designed to answer
these questions rely on inferential statistics to support or
refute the superiority of one treatment over another.
There are two main areas of inferential
statistics:

– Estimating parameters. This means taking a statistic from


your sample data (for example the sample mean) and
using it to say something about a population parameter
(i.e. the population mean).
– Hypothesis tests. This is where you can use
sample data to answer research questions. For
example, you might be interested in knowing if a
new cancer drug is effective. Or if breakfast helps
children perform better in schools.
– It is used by scientists to test specific predictions,
called hypotheses, by calculating how likely it is
that a pattern or relationship between variables
could have arisen by chance.

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