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TERMS
Cohort - group with similar characteristics
Confidence Interval (CI) - most studies use a 95% CI, which indicates a 95% certainty that the result falls somewhere in the range stated. Confounding factors - unexpected factors that may effect data Controls - the group of participants who don't receive any intervention and whose results on tests are compared to the group that did receive the intervention Correlation - measure of how closely connected factors are; says nothing about what causes what Incidence - actual number afflicted right now Inverse association - when one factor increases, the other decreases Longitudinal - long-term PI - principle investigator or lead researcher Participants - people who have agreed to take part in the study Peer review - before a study is published in a journal, it is distributed to several researchers in the same field for review, essentially to ensure there hasn't been any monkey business Prevalence - number afflicted over time Probability - the likelihood of the result being incorrect; a probability level of .05 is generally accepted as sound. Less than that is good. Randomize - mixing it up; participants are often randomly assigned to conditions, to avoid statistical screw ups Retrospective -data collected from the past; may rely on participants' memory of events Variables - factors under consideration |
