creators_name: Chow, Siu L.
type: other
datestamp: 2003-02-21
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:13
metadata_visibility: show
title: Statistics and Its Role in Psychological Research
ispublished: inpress
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: phil-sci
full_text_status: public
keywords: conditional probability, confidence-interval, correlation, statistics, effect size, regression, statistical power, statistical significance, Type I error, Type II error
abstract: How one may use descriptive statistics to give a succinct description of research data is first discussed. The probability basis of inferential statistics, namely, the random sampling distribution of the test statistic, is then introduced. The said sampling distribution is used to introduced the null-hypothesis significance-testing procedure (NHSTP). The emphasis on 'procedure' serves to highlight the fact that significance tests are about data, not about the substantive hypothesis. The distinction is made between (a) the statistical alternative hypothesis (H1) and the substantive hypothesis, (b) using NHSTP to test whether or not chance is responsible for the data and using the embeddding conditional propositions to corroborate the theory. NHSTP serves to supply the minor premise for the theory-corroboration procedure. Some conceptual difficulties with effect-size, statistical power and meta-analysis are also discusse
date: 2002
date_type: published
refereed: TRUE
referencetext: Chow, S. L. (1998). A précis of "Statistical Significance: Rationale, Validity and Utility."  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 169-194. 

Cohen, J. (1987). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (revised edition). New York: Academic Press. 

Meehl, P. E. (1967).  Theory testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox.  Philosophy of science, 34, 103-115.

Siegel, S. (1956). Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill. 

Wilkinson, L., and Task Force on Statistical Inference, APA Board of Scientific Affairs.  (1999).  Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and explanations.  American Psychologist, 54(8), 594-604. 

Winer, B. J. (1962). Statistical principles in experimental design.  New York: McGraw-Hill. 

citation:   Chow, Siu L.  (2002) Statistics and Its Role in Psychological Research.     (In Press)  
document_url: http://cogprints.org/2782/1/EOLSSsta.pdf