Bivariate Hypothesis Testing
The Fundamentals of Political Science Research, chapter 8, Cambridge University Press, (2008)Abstract
Once we have set up a hypothesis test and collected data, how do we
evaluate what we have found? In this chapter we provide hands-on discussions of the basic building blocks used to make statistical inferences
about the relationship between two variables. We deal with the oftenmisunderstood topic of ” statistical significance” – focusing both on what it
is and what it is not – as well as the nature of statistical uncertainty. We introduce three ways to examine relationships between two variables: tabular
analysis (crosstabs), difference of means tests, and correlation coefficients.
(We will introduce a fourth technique, bivariate regression analysis, in
Chapter 9.)