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What is a Confidence Interval?

Any sample-based findings used to generalize a population are subject to sampling error. In other words, sample statistics won’t exactly match the population parameters they estimate.

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Odds is confusing in a different way than some of the other terms in this series.

First, it’s a bit of an abstract concept, which I’ll explain below.

But beyond that, it’s confusing because it is used in everyday English as a synonym for probability, but it’s actually a distinct technical term.

I found this incorrect definition recently in a (non-statistics) book: (more…)

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Multicollinearity is one of those terms in statistics that is often defined in one of two ways:

1. Very mathematical terms that make no sense — I mean, what is a linear combination anyway?

2. Completely oversimplified in order to avoid the mathematical terms — it’s a high correlation, right?

So what is it really? In English?

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I’ve written about this before–there is just something about statistics that makes people feel…well, not so smart.

This makes people v-e-r-y reluctant to ask questions.

This fact really struck me years and years ago.  Hit me hard.

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It’s easy to think that if you just knew statistics better, data analysis wouldn’t be so hard.

It’s true that more statistical knowledge is always helpful. But I’ve found that statistical knowledge is only part of the story.

Another key part is developing data analysis skills. These skills apply to all analyses. It doesn’t matter which statistical method or software you’re using. So even if you never need any statistical analysis harder than a t-test, developing these skills will make your job easier.

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Multilevel models and Mixed Models are generally the same thing. In our recent webinar on the basics of mixed models, Random Intercept and Random Slope Models, we had a number of questions about terminology that I’m going to answer here.

If you want to see the full recording of the webinar, get it here. It’s free.

Q: Is this different from multi-level modeling?

A: No. I don’t really know the history of why we have the different names, but the difference in multilevel modeling (more…)

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