Statistics for Criminology and Criminal Justice
Fourth Edition
Learning Objectives
- Explain the basic notion of probability of being in “the long run” compared with predictions of single cases.
- Describe the notion of independence between variables.
- Summarize the difference between probability distributions and empirical distributions.
- Identify the rules of probability.
- Describe how probability distributions are used to test hypotheses.
- State the difference between a null and a research hypothesis.
- Identify areas under the normal curve and how we can transform values from a variable distribution to z scores and determine the probability of their occurrence.
- Describe why probability theory is important for criminological and criminal justice–related research.