Inferential statistics or statistical induction comprises the use of statistics to make inferences concerning some unknown aspect of a population. It is distinguished from descriptive statistics.

Two schools of inferential statistics are frequency probability and Bayesian inference.

Contents 1 Definition 2 See also 3 Further reading 4 External links

Definition

Statistical inference is inference about a population from a random sample drawn from it or, more generally, about a random process from its observed behavior during a finite period of time. It includes:

1. point estimation
2. interval estimation
3. hypothesis testing (or statistical significance testing)
4. prediction

There are several distinct schools of thought about the justification of statistical inference. All are based on some idea of what real world phenomena can be reasonably modeled as probability.

1. frequency probability
2. Bayesian probability
3. fiducial probability

The topics below are usually included in the area of statistical inference.

1. Statistical assumptions
2. Likelihood principle
3. Estimating parameters
4. Statistical hypothesis testing
5. Revising opinions in statistics
6. planning statistical research
7. summarizing statistical data

See also

• Descriptive statistics
• Induction (philosophy)

Further reading

• Lenhard, Johannes (2006). "Models and Statistical Inference: The Controversy between Fisher and Neyman—Pearson," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 57 Issue 1, pp. 69-91.
• Sudderth, William D. (1994). "Coherent Inference and Prediction in Statistics," in Prawitz, Skyrms, and Westerstahl (eds.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science IX: Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Uppsala, Sweden, August 7-14, 1991, Amsterdam: Elsevier.
• Trusted, Jennifer (1979). The Logic of Scientific Inference: An Introduction, London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd.

External links

• MIT OpenCourseWare: Statistical Inference

v • d • e Statistics Design of experiments Population • Sampling • Stratified sampling • Replication • Blocking Sample size estimation Null hypothesis • Alternative hypothesis • Type I and Type II errors • Statistical power • Effect size Descriptive statistics Continuous data Location Mean (Arithmetic, Geometric, Harmonic) • Median • Mode Dispersion Range • Standard deviation • Coefficient of variation • Percentile Moments Variance • Semivariance • Skewness • Kurtosis Categorical data Frequency • Contingency table Inferential statistics Bayesian inference • Frequentist inference • Hypothesis testing • Significance • P-value • Interval estimation • Confidence interval • Meta-analysis General estimation Bayesian estimator • Maximum likelihood • Method of moments • Minimum distance • Maximum spacing Specific tests Z-test(normal) • Student's t-test • Chi-square test • F-test Survival analysis Survival function • Kaplan-Meier • Logrank test • Failure rate • Proportional hazards models Correlation Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient • Rank correlation (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, Kendall tau rank correlation coefficient) • Confounding variable Linear models General linear model • Generalized linear model • Analysis of variance • Analysis of covariance Regression analysis Linear regression • Nonlinear regression • Logistic regression Statistical graphics Bar chart • Biplot • Box plot • Control chart • Forest plot • Histogram • Q-Q plot • Run chart • Scatterplot • Stemplot History History of statistics • Founders of statistics • Timeline of probability and statistics Publications Journals in statistics • Important publications Category • Portal • List of topics

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 25 August 2008, at 11:23.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by PediaView.com. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with PediaView.com.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Statistical inference".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://pediaview.com/openpedia/Statistical_inference

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.