MUHAMAT RIZAL

18018143

Statistic for ELT Reseach

SUMMARY
Chapter 1
Introduction to Statistics

Statistical procedures are used to advance our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. It is
by systematically studying groups of people, gathering scores, and analyzing the results statistically
that we learn about how humans perform under differing situations, what their reactions and
preferences are, and how they respond to different treatments and procedures. We can then use this
knowledge to address a wide variety of social and environmental issues that affect the quality of
people’s lives

Statistics helps to strengthen your critical thinking skills and reasoning abilities. Some of what we
hear in the news or read in magazines or on the Internet may contain false or misleading information.

Statistics enables you to understand research results in the professional journals of your area of
specialization. Most fields of study publish professional journals, many of which contain articles
describing firsthand accounts of research. Such publications enable professionals to remain abreast of
new knowledge in their respective areas of expertise.

Research, a systematic inquiry in search of knowledge, involves the use of statistics. In general,
statistics refers to procedures used as researchers go about organizing and analyzing the information
that is collected. Usually, a set of scores, referred to as data, will be collected. Before the scores have
undergone any type of statistical transformation or analysis, they are called raw scores.

More often than not, researchers want to draw conclusions about the characteristics of an entire group
of persons, plants, animals, objects, or events that have something in common. This group is referred
to as the population. Populations can be broadly defined, such as gorillas in the wild, or more
narrowly defined, such as high school seniors in the state of Kentucky. In either case, populations are
generally larger in scope than researchers can realistically access in their entirety. Consequently, only
a sample, or subset, of the population will be used in the study, the results of which will then be
generalized to the population as a whole.

How do you obtain a suitable cross-section of students for your sample? There are several sampling
procedures that can be used in research, but the most basic is called random sampling, which means
that all members of a population have the same chance of being selected for inclusion in the sample.
A variable is anything that varies or that can be present in more than one form or amount. Variables
describe differences. These can be differences in individuals, such as height, race, or political beliefs.
Variables are also used to describe differences in environmental or experimental conditions, such as
room temperature, amount of sleep, or different drug dosages.

Qualitative variables differ in kind rather than amount – such as eye color, gender, or the make of
automobiles. Quantitative variables differ in amount – such as scores on a test, annual incomes, or the
number of pairs of shoes that people own. Variables can be further described as being either discrete
or continuous. Discrete variables cannot be divided or split into intermediate values, but rather can be
measured only in whole numbers.

Continuous variables , on the other hand, can be broken down into fractions or smaller units.
Whatever number is reported is assumed to include an interval of intermediate values bounded by
what is referred to as real limits .

The least-specific measurement scale is the nominal scale, which simply classifies observations into
different categories. Religion, types of trees, and colors are examples of variables measured on a
nominal scale. You can see that these variables have no quantitative value. Sometimes, numbers are
assigned arbitrarily to nominal data.

We are provided with a bit more information using the ordinal scale. In addition to classifying
observations into different categories, this scale also permits ordering, or ranking, of the observations.

Much of the research discussed in this book is based on the principles of experimentation, in which an
experimenter manipulates an independent variable to determine its effect on a dependent variable.
However, we will also examine some nonexperimental research in which variables that already exist
in different values are passively observed and analyzed rather than being actively manipulated.