Statistics in Biology

Histogram Shows continuous data – Data within a particular range

Mean (x̄) is a measure of the central tendency of a set of data. (In other words…it is the average of the data). Ex. Calculate the mean. Answer = 11.6

Graphing the Mean  Bar Graph

Other important calculations Range – Difference between the maximum and minimum quantity – What is the range of temperature for this day? Minimum temperature: – 52 ° F Maximum temperature: – 82 ° F Range: = 30 Mode – Most common value What is the mode of this set of data? 4, 10, 5, 10, 12, 5, 5, 3

Median – Middle quantity of a set of data What is the median of this set of data? 20, 10, 50, 30, 40 What is the median of this set of data? 4, 10, 5, 10, 12, 8, 5, 3 What if there is an even number of data values and the middle values are not identical? Calculate the average of the 2 middle values (5+8)/2= 6.5

Error bars are a graphical representation of the variability of data.

Measures of Variability Standard deviation (s) is a measure of the spread of most of the data X= data value N= total number of data values

68% of all data fall within ± 1 standard deviation of the mean 95% of all data fall within ± 2 standard deviation of the mean

Measurements of Confidence Uncertainty: the margin of error in a measurement – Eg. digital scale: 126.4g (±0.1g)

Standard Error of the Mean (SE or SEM): measures how close the sample mean is to the population mean The greater the sample size, the less the uncertainty in the calculations

95% confidence interval (95% CI): 95% confident that the true means falls between 2 SE above/below calculated mean Graph with error bars representing SE of the mean Graph with error bars representing 95% confidence interval

Significance of Data Which graph shows two means that are significantly different? Hint: Look for the non-overlapping error bars. Answer: The means in (c) are statistically different.

CHI SQUARE ANALYSIS: The chi square analysis allows you to use statistics to determine if your data is “good” or “non-biased” or if the data is “bad” or “biased” If statistics show the data is biased this means that somehow the data is far different from what you expected and something is causing the difference beyond just normal chance occurrences.

CHI SQUARE FORMULA:

NULL HYPOTHESIS: The hypothesis is termed the null hypothesis which states – That there is NO substantial statistical deviation (difference) between observed values and the expected values. In other words, the results or differences that do exist between observed and expected are totally random and occurred by chance alone.

Example Null Hypothesis: There is no statistical difference between the number of males and females enrolled in AP Biology.

If the null hypothesis is supported by analysis The assumption is that the number of males and females in this class random. If the null hypothesis is not supported by analysis The deviation (difference) between what was observed and what the expected values were is very far apart…something non-random must be occurring…. Possible explanations: career interests of males vs. females, work ethic of males vs. females, … CHI SQUARE VALUE:

In order to determine the probability using a chi square chart you need to determine the degrees of freedom (DF) DEGREES OF FREEDOM: is the number of possibilities (groups) in minus one. – DF = # of groups – 1 Using the DF value, determine the probability or distribution using the Chi Square table If the level of significance read from the table is greater than 0.05 or 5% then the null hypothesis is accepted and the results are due to chance alone and are unbiased. DF VALUE:

Calculating the Chi Square Value for this class Observed (Actual) Expected (Theoretical) Males Females

ACCEPT NULL HYPOTHESIS RESULTS ARE RANDOM REJECT HYPOTHESIS RESULTS ARE NOT RANDOM Probability (p) Degrees of Freedom CHI SQUARE TABLE: If the X 2 is less than the critical number when p=0.05 then you can accept the null hypothesis. (Meaning the data is due to chance