A __T-test__ is a statistical method used to see if two sets of data are significantly different. A __Z-test__ is a statistical test to help determine the probability that new data will be near the point for which a score was calculated. In this lesson, you will learn about these two statistical calculations, their differences and similarities.
!!!Introduction
__Z_tests__ and __T-Tests__ are statistical methods that have applications in business, science and any other discipline involving data analysis. Let’s explore some of their differences and similarities as well as situations where one of these methods should be used over the other.
!!!Similarities and Differences
__Z-tests__ are statistical calculations that can be used to compare sample and population means. The Z score
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To do this, she will compare the mean for her students against that of the standardized test.
!!!T-Test Example
A teacher wants to know if students who use ‘reading computer games’ in her classroom perform better in reading assessments than students who do not use these games. If there is a difference between the two groups of students, she also wants to know if that difference is significant or due to chance.
Currently, half of the students in her 28 student class use ‘reading computer games’ and the other half do not. Which statistical method should she
The second approach for making inferences about parameters is the nonparametric method. The nonparametric method is usually used when no underlying distribution is known or can be assumed. Thus, the nonparametric method is consid...
Not many materials were used in this study. I sent the participants a text message and then they replied giving me permission to use them in this experiment. The participants then completed the test on Microsoft Word and emailed it back to me. Therefore the materials that were used were: a phone, a laptop, the internet and an email account.
The final chapter of this book encourages people to be critical when taking in statistics. Someone taking a critical approach to statistics tries assessing statistics by asking questions and researching the origins of a statistic when that information is not provided. The book ends by encouraging readers to know the limitations of statistics and understand how statistics are
Descriptive statistics is a procedure of organizing sample data. This procedure allows readers to be able to understand and describe the data’s importance. Descriptive statistics allows an individual to quickly understand the data and make predict an individual score; however, descriptive statistics does not describe all data in the sample. Inferential statistics is a process that determines whether sample data accurately represented the relationship to the population. In other words, one uses inferential statistics to determine if the sample data is believable.
The program was doing well to improve student literacy, until there became a problem with the fluency monitoring. The teachers would administer the prompts to the children in three different levels. They would collect their data on the students by recording the number of words read correctly per minute. The scores seemed to improve at all levels in the first through fourth grade and at the first and second level of fifth grade during the first year. But, at the third level of the fifth graders the scores took a huge drop. The scores continued to drop the following year at the same level as well. The teachers reported their problem and the passage at the fifth grade level was more difficult than the passage of the sixth grade level. When the passage was later analyzed, it was placed at the 9th and 10th grade level. The committee examined all the prompts and assessed the readability levels of all the passages. They chose two prompts for each grade level and devised a protocol whereby the teachers will use the same prompts at each of three points during the year. The teachers will give the difficult prompt first and if the student scores in the 50th percentile, the student will not require any further testing. The student’s success with a reading will depend on the difficulty of the text and the students background knowledge and own interests.
Collected data were subjected to analysis of variance using the SAS (9.1, SAS institute, 2004) statistical software package. Statistical assessments of differences between mean values were performed by the LSD test at P = 0.05.
The researcher will record the raw scores and calculate the standard deviation for both the pretest and the posttest. A dependent T-Test will be used at the .05 level of confidence to decide if there is statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two tests given.
Standardized tests. We’ve all heard of them. Most of us have taken them, and hopefully passed them. But how many of us really know what they are. In other words, what exactly is a “standardized test”? If you ask a hundred teachers or other members of the educational community, you might get 50 different answers. The truth is, according to a well-respected glossary of educational terms, the definition of a standardized test is “any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions, from (a) common bank (of) questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a ‘standard’ or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students.” (QTD Great Schools Partnership). The questions are usually multiple choice in nature and they are graded the exact same way. This makes it possible to compare data from person to person and year to year.
Standardized testing has taken over the education realm and led to a shift in the institutional goals and values of education. In the last 40 years, standardized exams have changed; they were once used to determine the learning level of students, but now they are being used to determine the teacher’s ability. Standardized tests do not measure education quality and are incorrectly used, leading to the wrongful evaluation of teachers and the limiting of education for students by schools.
One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.
One of the more unique ways to summarize a data set is with a standardized (z) score. A z score is a way to indicate how many standard deviations above or below the mean a data point is. An example of this would be a student receiving a z score of -.57 on a test. The student could infer that they had scored below the mean of the class by .57 standard deviations (Lane, D.,
Second I will describe what these tests are used to figure out and how they are carried out.
“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.” This quote by Michelle Obama illustrates the idea that standardized testing should not have such a large influence on education in America. However, a majority of people are under the impression that standardized tests are an accurate method to measure a person's intellectual ability. I believe that standardized tests have developed into a very critical part of the American education system; that is hindering the growth of students and teachers instead of providing a tool that can accurately measure knowledge.
... tested in the same manner for a specified purpose in order to maintain consistency and validity within results.
Statistics contains the development of procedures and tests that are used to describe the variability characteristic in data, the odds of certain outcomes, and the fault and doubt related with those outcomes. Some statistics are influenced, some are based on beliefs, and some are false.