A parameter, generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system. That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when identifying the system, or when evaluating its performance, status, condition, etc.
In probability theory and statistics, skewness is a measure of the asymmetry of the probability distribution of a real-valued random variable about its mean. The skewness value can be positive, zero, negative, or undefined.
In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics it normally refers to the degree to which a pair of variables are linearly related. Familiar examples of dependent phenomena include the correlation between the height of parents and their offspring, and the correlation between the price of a good and the quantity the consumers are willing to purchase, as it is depicted in the so-called demand curve.
In statistics, the Pearson correlation coefficient ― also known as Pearson's r, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (PPMCC), the bivariate correlation, or colloquially simply as the correlation coefficient ― is a measure of linear correlation between two sets of data. It is the ratio between the covariance of two variables and the product of their standard deviations; thus, it is essentially a normalized measurement of the covariance, such that the result always has a value between −1 and 1. As with covariance itself, the measure can only reflect a linear correlation of variables, and ignores many other types of relationships or correlations. As a simple example, one would expect the age and height of a sample of teenagers from a high school to have a Pearson correlation coefficient significantly greater than 0, but less than 1.
In statistics, the standard score is the number of standard deviations by which the value of a raw score is above or below the mean value of what is being observed or measured. Raw scores above the mean have positive standard scores, while those below the mean have negative standard scores.
In statistics, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or Spearman's ρ, named after Charles Spearman and often denoted by the Greek letter (rho) or as , is a nonparametric measure of rank correlation. It assesses how well the relationship between two variables can be described using a monotonic function.
In statistics, an effect size is a value measuring the strength of the relationship between two variables in a population, or a sample-based estimate of that quantity. It can refer to the value of a statistic calculated from a sample of data, the value of a parameter for a hypothetical population, or to the equation that operationalizes how statistics or parameters lead to the effect size value. Examples of effect sizes include the correlation between two variables, the regression coefficient in a regression, the mean difference, or the risk of a particular event happening. Effect sizes complement statistical hypothesis testing, and play an important role in power analyses, sample size planning, and in meta-analyses. The cluster of data-analysis methods concerning effect sizes is referred to as estimation statistics.
A t-test is any statistical hypothesis test in which the test statistic follows a Student's t-distribution under the null hypothesis. It is most commonly applied when the test statistic would follow a normal distribution if the value of a scaling term in the test statistic were known. When the scaling term is estimated based on the data, the test statistic—under certain conditions—follows a Student's t distribution. The t-test's most common application is to test whether the means of two populations are different.
In statistics, the correlation ratio is a measure of the curvilinear relationship between the statistical dispersion within individual categories and the dispersion across the whole population or sample. The measure is defined as the ratio of two standard deviations representing these types of variation. The context here is the same as that of the intraclass correlation coefficient, whose value is the square of the correlation ratio.
In statistics, a contingency table is a type of table in a matrix format that displays the (multivariate) frequency distribution of the variables. They are heavily used in survey research, business intelligence, engineering, and scientific research. They provide a basic picture of the interrelation between two variables and can help find interactions between them. The term contingency table was first used by Karl Pearson in "On the Theory of Contingency and Its Relation to Association and Normal Correlation", part of the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs Biometric Series I published in 1904.
In statistics, the coefficient of determination, denoted R2 or r2 and pronounced "R squared", is the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable that is predictable from the independent variable(s).
This glossary of statistics and probability is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in the mathematical sciences of statistics and probability, their sub-disciplines, and related fields. For additional related terms, see Glossary of mathematics and Glossary of experimental design.
In statistics, the residual sum of squares (RSS), also known as the sum of squared residuals (SSR) or the sum of squared estimate of errors (SSE), is the sum of the squares of residuals. It is a measure of the discrepancy between the data and an estimation model, such as a linear regression. A small RSS indicates a tight fit of the model to the data. It is used as an optimality criterion in parameter selection and model selection.
In statistics, simple linear regression is a linear regression model with a single explanatory variable. That is, it concerns two-dimensional sample points with one independent variable and one dependent variable and finds a linear function that, as accurately as possible, predicts the dependent variable values as a function of the independent variable. The adjective simple refers to the fact that the outcome variable is related to a single predictor.
The point biserial correlation coefficient (rpb) is a correlation coefficient used when one variable is dichotomous; Y can either be "naturally" dichotomous, like whether a coin lands heads or tails, or an artificially dichotomized variable. In most situations it is not advisable to dichotomize variables artificially. When a new variable is artificially dichotomized the new dichotomous variable may be conceptualized as having an underlying continuity. If this is the case, a biserial correlation would be the more appropriate calculation.
In statistics, a rank correlation is any of several statistics that measure an ordinal association—the relationship between rankings of different ordinal variables or different rankings of the same variable, where a "ranking" is the assignment of the ordering labels "first", "second", "third", etc. to different observations of a particular variable. A rank correlation coefficient measures the degree of similarity between two rankings, and can be used to assess the significance of the relation between them. For example, two common nonparametric methods of significance that use rank correlation are the Mann–Whitney U test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
In statistics, the Kendall rank correlation coefficient, commonly referred to as Kendall's τ coefficient, is a statistic used to measure the ordinal association between two measured quantities. A τ test is a non-parametric hypothesis test for statistical dependence based on the τ coefficient.
In statistics, the intraclass correlation, or the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), is a descriptive statistic that can be used when quantitative measurements are made on units that are organized into groups. It describes how strongly units in the same group resemble each other. While it is viewed as a type of correlation, unlike most other correlation measures it operates on data structured as groups, rather than data structured as paired observations.
In statistics, the phi coefficient is a measure of association for two binary variables. In machine learning, it is known as the Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) and used as a measure of the quality of binary (two-class) classifications, introduced by biochemist Brian W. Matthews in 1975. Introduced by Karl Pearson, and also known as the Yule phi coefficient from its introduction by Udny Yule in 1912 this measure is similar to the Pearson correlation coefficient in its interpretation. In fact, a Pearson correlation coefficient estimated for two binary variables will return the phi coefficient. Two binary variables are considered positively associated if most of the data falls along the diagonal cells. In contrast, two binary variables are considered negatively associated if most of the data falls off the diagonal. If we have a 2×2 table for two random variables x and y
Taylor diagrams are mathematical diagrams designed to graphically indicate which of several approximate representations of a system, process, or phenomenon is most realistic. This diagram, invented by Karl E. Taylor in 1994 facilitates the comparative assessment of different models. It is used to quantify the degree of correspondence between the modeled and observed behavior in terms of three statistics: the Pearson correlation coefficient, the root-mean-square error (RMSE) error, and the standard deviation.
