EDUCATIONAL DATA REASONING

BBD 30402

By:

Faculty of Technical & Vocational Education,

University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Malaysia
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

What is Normal Distribution?

• Refers to a particular way in which scores or

observations will tend to pile up or distribute
around a particular value.

• Is bell-shaped based on a mathematical equation.

• WILL WE GET IT IN OUR RESEARCH?

 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Why is ND Important?
• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
FIRST
• Many physical, biological & social phenomena = normal
distributed
SECOND
• Many kinds of statistical tests
REQUIRE
– Variables are ND
– Approximately ND
However, some tests are working well even wide deviations from
normality.
• Namely : ”robust” tests
– Tolerate the lack of a ND
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Why is Robustness?

• Robustness has various meanings in statistics, but all imply

some resilience to changes in the type of data used. This
may sound a bit ambiguous, but that is because robustness
can refer to different kinds of insensitivities to changes. For
example:
– Robustness to outliers
– Robustness to non-normality
– Robustness to non-constant variance (or heteroscedasticity)
• In the case of tests, robustness usually refers to the test still
being valid given such a change. In other words, whether
the outcome is significant or not is only meaningful if the
assumptions of the test are met. When such assumptions
are relaxed (i.e. not as important), the test is said to be
robust.
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Characteristics of Normal Curve

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Determined by MEAN & STANDARD DEVIATION
• Is symmetric and centered at the mean of the variable
• Spread depends on standard deviation of variable
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Three-Standard-Deviations Rules

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Mean=100; SD=15

• One SD from mean- 68%

– 85 – 115

• Two SD from mean- 95%

– 70 – 130

• Three SD from mean- 99%

– 55 - 145
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Characteristics of Normal Curve

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

X
Mean
Median
Mode
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Characteristics of Normal Curve

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

Mean
Median

mode

X
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Characteristics of Normal Curve

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

Mean
Median

No
X mode
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

•• COURSE
(a)Histogram LEARNING OUTCOMES
– Value on horizontal axis – midpoints of value range
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• COURSE
• Skewness LEARNING OUTCOMES
– REFER to value 0

– Example SPSS output:

• Group 1 Skewness .973
• Group 2 Skewness +.235
• Group 3 Skewness -1.200

• Which group is closer to normal????

Group 2 > Group 1 > group 3
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• •COURSE
(c) Kurtosis LEARNING OUTCOMES
– Degree of “flatness” or “peakedness”.
– B = high kurtosis (peakedness /positive)
– C = low kurtosis (flatness / negative)
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Kurtosis
– REFER to value 0

– Example SPSS output:

• Group 1 Kurtosis .500
• Group 2 Kurtosis -1.58
• Group 3 Kurtosis 1.65

• Which group is closer to normal????

Group 1 > Group 2 > Group 3
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• COURSE
• Box Plot LEARNING OUTCOMES
– Whiskers
• These 2 whiskers indicate the spread of the
score.
• Scores fall outside the upper & lower whiskers =
extreme scores / outliers.
• WHY important???
– Error in data entry
– Statistical technique = means
– Data contain extreme scores
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• COURSE
(e)NormalityLEARNING OUTCOMES
Probability Plot
– Formed by
• Vertical axis = expected normal values
• Horizontal axis = observed values

– Values above line = > normal score

– Values below line = < normal score

– Be careful the outlier

• Recording errors?
• Samples being entirely from the same population?
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION
Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

Normality Probability
• •COURSE LEARNING PlotOUTCOMES
Observed + = outliers
data

++
+

Expected
+ data
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Graphical Methods

• •COURSE
Normality LEARNING
Probability PlotOUTCOMES
– or Normal Q-Q Plot

– Normal ●left skewed ● right skewed

 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Statistical Techniques

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
• (a)Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test
– Based on H
• Ho: Distribution fits the data
• Ha: Distribution does not fits the data

– Subject > 50

– Significance level
• < .05 = NOT normal
• > .05 = normal
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Statistical Techniques

• •COURSE LEARNING
(b) Shapiro-Wilk Test OUTCOMES
– Based on H
• Ho: Distribution fits the data
• Ha: Distribution does not fits the data

– Subject < 50

– Significance level
• < .05 = reject Ho, NOT normal
• > .05 = accept Ho, normal
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

Assessing Normality using Statistical Techniques

•• COURSE LEARNING
Building Hypothesis OUTCOMES
for Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test and
Shapiro-Wilk Test

– Ho: The distribution does not significantly deviate from

the normal distribution.

– Ha: The distribution significantly deviates from the

normal distribution
 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

If Distribution NOT Normal???

• COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Use a nonparametric statistic
• Transform the variable to make it normal