BRIEF NOTES ON STATISTICS
Michael Wood ( http://woodm.myweb.port.ac.uk/ )
I wrote
these notes several years ago. If I were writing them now I would revise Part 3
along the lines of these papers:
Simple
Methods for Estimating Confidence Levels, or Tentative Probabilities, for
Hypotheses Instead of P Values, Methological
Innovations, 2019.
How sure are we? Two approaches to statistical
inference. (2018). arXiv:1803.06214 [stat.OT] or click here.
These notes are intended as a brief introduction to statistics as applied
to management, education, science, etc. I’ve tried to include only concepts and
methods which are useful or widely used (or both!), and focus on intuitive
meanings rather than complicated formulae. (There is a more recent perspective here.)
Introduction to
statistics - why, what and how?
Part 1: Histograms,
averages, measures of spread, probability and the normal distribution
Part 2: Scatter
diagrams, correlation coefficients (Kendall’s and Pearson’s) and regression
… and some more detail on
the method of Least Squares – using the Excel Solver
Part 3: Null
hypothesis tests and confidence intervals
… and the randomization test (a resampling method using an Excel spreadsheet)
Part 4: More on
regression: multiple regression, p values, confidence intervals, etc
… and a Video on SPSS
If you see
any mistakes in these notes, or have any comments or suggestions for
improvements, please email me at michael.wood@port.ac.uk. I am grateful to several people
who have given feedback; these include Michele Lundy, Reza Nemat
and Smita Amin.