Resources
On this page are some basic resources related to statistics, research methods, and APA. As more resources are created, they will be posted here.
These links to my YouTube content may be helpful to some:
Statistics Content
Research Methods Textbook Videos
Excel & SPSS:
Tips & Tricks
What is skewness and kurtosis?
02-25-2015
This is a PowerPoint presentation that provides some tips and tricks within Excel and SPSS.
Excel topics:
Creating pivot tables
Transpose and Text to Columns functions
Basic functions
Paired t-test
SPSS topics:
Opening data
Merging data
Selecting/deselecting cases
Recoding variables
Identifying duplicate cases
(File will download - open using PowerPoint)
03-10-2015
One of the primary assumptions of many parametric statistical tests is that data be approximately normally distributed. This assumption is commonly tested prior to running the actual analysis. If data are found sufficiently normal, this means that the distribution of data roughly approximates a bell-shaped normal curve. However, at times data can influenced by outlying data points or the way responses are clustered, altering the shape from normal.
Skewness refers to whether the data distribution is not symmetrical; that is, skew has to do with whether the distribution "leans" toward the left or right side. Positive skew indicates that the data are mostly clustered on the left side, and it is being skewed toward the right (positive) side by a few points there. Negative skew indicates that the distribution "leans" toward the left (negative) side.
Kurtosis refers to whether the data distribution is roughly normal in shape, or if the curve is very peaked in the middle (positive skew, aka leptokurtic) or very flat in the middle (negative skew, aka platykurtic).
See this file (download and open using PowerPoint) for some illustrations of these concepts.