List of Statistical Symbols
α The level of statistical significance selected. If you select p=0.05 you are setting a 5%
probability of making a Type I error, that is, a 5% chance of rejecting a null hypothesis
when it is true.
αi Fixed effect of the ith treatment in a statistical model for ANOVA e.g.
yij=μ+αi+εij
ai Random effect of the ith treatment in a statistical model for ANOVA
β The probability of making a Type II error, that is, the chance of not rejecting a null
hypothesis when it is not true.
β 0 ,
β 1 ,...
βn
Population regression weights (parameters) in a statistical model for regression e.g.
y=β 0 +β 1 x 1 +ε
β 0 is a constant in the above linear model.
b 0 ,
b 1 ,...
bn
Sample regression statistics (sometimes called partial regression coefficients) in a
regression equation e.g.
Ŷ=b 0 +b 1 x 1
b 0 is a constant in the above regression equation.
1 −β The power of a statistical test, that is the probability of rejecting a null hypothesis when
the null hypothesis is not true.
χ^2 (v) Chi-squared statistic with corresponding ‘v’ degrees of freedom (v represents the
appropriate degrees of freedom on which the value of Chi-square is evaluated).
χ^2 (FR) Friedman’s Chi-square statistic.
CI Confidence interval.
Binomial coefficient which refers to r successes in n trials.
df Degrees of freedom.
ε Random error term in a statistical model for regression.
εij Random error term for the jth observation in the ith treatment in an ANOVA statistical
model.
η Greek letter eta, population median.
F-ratio or F statistic with associated v 1 and v 2 degrees of freedom.
H Kruskal-Wallis test statistic.
H 0 Statistical or null hypothesis.
H 1 Alternative or research hypothesis.
K Kappa statistic, index of agreement.
MS Mean square term (sum of squares/df).
μ Population mean.
N or n Sample size (number of observations in a sample).
n′ Harmonic mean of two samples.