Writers of research reports use a variety of abbreviations, symbols and conventions when conveying information. Many of these are statistical or mathematical. The concepts, findings and interpretations are easier to understand and evaluate when the terminology is understood.

The following list of conventions are often found in the research literature. Use this Note as you read to assist with some of the unfamiliar symbols and abbreviations.

GREEK LETTERS

S        sigma sum of, add
m        mu    mean of population
s         standard deviation
ô         estimated standard deviation
c2       Chi-square - divergence between observed & expected frequencies.
h         eta correlation ratio
r          rho Spearman rank- order correlation.
t          tau Kendall’s tau correlation.

SYMBOLS

=        equal
<        less than
>        greater than
¹         not equal to
£        less than or equal to
³         greater than or equal to
¥        infinity
Ö`      square root
\         therefore

ABBREVIATIONS

AD     average deviation
df       degrees of freedom
f         frequency
f_e        expected frequency
f_o        observed frequency
H_o       null hypothesis
i         class interval
k        number of samples
Med    median
Mo      mode
N,n     number in sample
P        probability, significance
r         Pearson correlation coefficient
r²        coefficient of determination
SD      standard deviation
t         t test for small populations
x         mean
x,X      horizontal axis
y         predicted value
y,Y      vertical axis
z        standard score