TECHNIQUES

Path Length

Measure in Social Network Analysis representing the distances between pairs of nodes in the network. Average path-length is the average of these distances between all pairs of nodes

Performance Indicators

Performance indicators differ with business drivers and aims (or goals). A school might consider the failure rate of its students as a Key Performance Indicator which might help the school understand its position in the educational community, whereas a business might consider the percentage of income from return customers as a potential KPI.

But it is necessary for an organization to at least identify its KPI's. The key environment for identifying KPI's are:

• Having a pre-defined business process.
• Having clear goals/performance requirements for the business processes.
• Having a quantitative/qualitative measurement of the results and comparison with set goals.
• Investigating variances and tweaking processes or resources to achieve short-term goals.

Probability

Probability is the chance that something is likely to happen or be the case. Probability theory is used extensively in areas such as statistics, mathematics, science and philosophy to draw conclusions about the likelihood of potential events and the underlying mechanics of complex systems.

Probability Theory

Probability theory is a branch of mathematics concerned with analysis of random phenomena. The central objects of probability theory are random variables, stochastic processes, and events: mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic events or measured quantities that may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in an apparently random fashion. As a mathematical foundation for statistics, probability theory is essential to most human activities that involve quantitative analysis of large sets of data. Methods of probability theory also apply to description of complex systems given only partial knowledge of their state, as in statistical mechanics. A great discovery of twentieth century physics was the probabilistic nature of physical phenomena at microscopic scales, described in quantum mechanics.

 

Probit Regression

Probit models offer an alternative to logistic regression for modeling categorical dependent variables. Even though the outcomes tend to be similar, the underlying distributions are different. Probit models are popular in social sciences like economics.

A good way to understand the key difference between probit and logit models, is to assume that there is a latent variable z.

We do not observe z but instead observe y which takes the value 0 or 1. In the logit model we assume that follows a logistic distribution. In the probit model we assume that follows a standard normal distribution. Note that in social sciences (example economics), probit is often used to model situations where the observed variable y is continuous but takes values between 0 and 1.

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the human brain functioned. Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and information theory to study how the brain processes language. There are a number of subdisciplines; for example, as non-invasive techniques for studying the neurological workings of the brain become more and more widespread, neurolinguistics has become a field in its own right.

 

Psychometrics

Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the study of differences between individuals and between groups of individuals. It involves two major research tasks, namely: (i) the construction of instruments and procedures for measurement; and (ii) the development and refinement of theoretical approaches to measurement.