Statistics How To

Statistics Definitions > The Bogardus scale is a social distance scale that measures prejudice—or, more precisely, the degrees of warmth, intimacy, indifference or hostility—between an individual and any social, racial or ethnic groups. Developed by Emory Bogardus in 1924 and named after him, the Bogardus social distance scale is one of the oldest psychological attitude … Read more

Statistics Definitions > The Bray Curtis dissimilarity is used to quantify the differences in species populations between two different sites. It’s used primarily in ecology and biology, and can be calculated with the following formula: Where: i & j are the two sites, Si is the total number of specimens counted on site i, Sj … Read more

Bayesian Statistics > The Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) is an index used in Bayesian statistics to choose between two or more alternative models. The BIC is also known as the Schwarz information criterion (abrv. SIC) or the Schwarz-Bayesian information criteria. It was published in a 1978 paper by Gideon E. Schwarz, and is closely related … Read more

Design of Experiments > This article is about Strip-Plot experimental design. For the strip plot graph (a type of scatter plot), see: What is a Dot Plot? What is a Strip-Plot Design? You may want to read about factors and blocks first. Strip-plot designs (also called split-blocks) were originally used in wheat experiments (hence the … Read more

Sampling > A sampling unit is the building block of a data set; an individual member of the population, a cluster of members, or some other predefined unit. It must be concretely defined as part of the groundwork for any statistical research or study. Typically, it is the minimum unit of observation that possesses the … Read more

ANOVA > What is a Three-Way ANOVA? The terms “three-way”, “two-way” or “one-way” in ANOVA refer to how many factors are in your test. A three-way ANOVA (also called a three-factor ANOVA) has three factors (independent variables) and one dependent variable. For example, time spent studying, prior knowledge, and hours of sleep are factors that … Read more

Correlation Coefficients > What is Zero-Order Correlation? Zero-order correlation indicates nothing has been controlled for or “partialed out” in an experiment. They are any correlation between two variables (X, Y) where no factor is controlled or held constant. If a third factor Z is controlled for, the correlation is first-order; If factors Z,A are controlled … Read more

Binomial Theorem > You may want to read these articles first: What is a Confidence Interval? What is a Binomial Distribution? What is a Binomial Confidence Interval? The binomial confidence interval is a measure of uncertainty for a proportion in a statistical population. It takes a proportion from a sample and adjusts for sampling error. … Read more

Statistics Definitions > Pareto efficiency is a quality of allocations in economics and game theory. If an allocation is Pareto efficient, no option can be made better off without making at least one other option worse off. It’s important to note that a Pareto efficient allocation, while always most efficient, is not necessarily the best … Read more

Bayesian Statistics > Cromwell’s rule (also known as the zero priors paradox) states that you should never assign prior probabilities of 0 or 1 to anything, no matter how likely or unlikely, unless it is a logically true or false statement. For example, 5 + 5 = 10 is a logically true statement, so can … Read more