Beyond Basic Statistics: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques Every Data Analyst Should Know

GLOSSARY

2 × 2 contingency table

a contingency table having one variable with two possible values and one outcome with two possible values.

2 × 5 contingency table

a contingency table having one variable with two possible values and one outcome with five possible values.

Alternative hypothesis

in a hypothesis test, the claim you accept as true only if you have enough evidence in the data to reject the null hypothesis.

Anderson–Darling test

a hypothesis test to determine if a sample conforms to a specific probability distribution, the normal distribution in particular.

Anomaly detection

the process of identifying outliers or other unusual observations.

Average

a measure of the central value in a set of observations. Also called a sample mean. Calculated by adding all the values and dividing by the sample size.

Bimodal distribution

a split frequency distribution, where observations are clustered around each of two central values.

Binomial distribution

a probability distribution describing the number of successes in a fixed set of independent trials.

Blocking

in a study, the process of collecting data in groups, where each group is as homogeneous as possible; a sampling technique to minimize the impact of potentially confounding factors.

Bootstrapping

a data-based method for assessing the accuracy of an estimate, whether it’s the variance, bias, or a confidence interval. Based on resampling.

Boxplot

A graphical representation of a five-number summary, illustrating the minimum, ...