Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Getting Started
- Part I Why We Use Statistics
- Part II How to Use Statistics
- 5 Planning Your Statistical Analysis
- 6 A Cautionary Tail: Why You Should Not Do a One-Tailed Test
- 7 Is This Normal?
- 8 Sorting Out Outliers
- 9 Power and Two Types of Error
- 10 Using Non-Parametric Tests
- 11 A Robust t-Test
- 12 The ANOVA Family and Friends
- 13 Exploring, Over-Testing and Fishing
- 14 When Is a Correlation Not a Correlation?
- 15 What Makes a Good Likert Item?
- 16 The Meaning of Factors
- 17 Unreliable Reliability: The Problem of Cronbach’s Alpha
- 18 Tests for Questionnaires
- Index
7 - Is This Normal?
from Part II - How to Use Statistics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2019
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Getting Started
- Part I Why We Use Statistics
- Part II How to Use Statistics
- 5 Planning Your Statistical Analysis
- 6 A Cautionary Tail: Why You Should Not Do a One-Tailed Test
- 7 Is This Normal?
- 8 Sorting Out Outliers
- 9 Power and Two Types of Error
- 10 Using Non-Parametric Tests
- 11 A Robust t-Test
- 12 The ANOVA Family and Friends
- 13 Exploring, Over-Testing and Fishing
- 14 When Is a Correlation Not a Correlation?
- 15 What Makes a Good Likert Item?
- 16 The Meaning of Factors
- 17 Unreliable Reliability: The Problem of Cronbach’s Alpha
- 18 Tests for Questionnaires
- Index
Summary
Many statistical tests that are commonly used rely on the assumption that data are normally distributed. This chapter discusses why normality commonly occurs in statistics but also how, in many practical situations in HCI, it is not safe to assume normality. It also shows how tests for normality are not meaningful or useful. Instead, where normality is in doubt, analysis should be more careful and use suitable alternative tests.
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- Doing Better Statistics in Human-Computer Interaction , pp. 86 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019