The degree to which a sample might differ from the population.

The process of selecting some part of a population to observe and to estimate something of interest about the whole population (ex: the abundance of a rare or endangered species in the population might be estimated by the pattern of detections from a sample of sites taken in the study region). These methods assume that each member of the population has a known non-zero probability of being selected (probability sampling methods). They include simple random sampling, systematic sampling, and stratified sampling. Sampling error, which is the degree to which a sample might differ from the population, could be calculated and results are reported plus or minus the sampling error.

The levels or sizes at which particular ecological entities or processes are considered. One distinction that is often made is between local, regional and biogeographic scales.

Facts obtained by making observations and measurements.

Educated guesses that attempt to explain scientific observations or scientific laws. It is the first step in the scientific method.

The way scientists gather and evaluate information; it involves observations, hypothesis formulation and testing.

Description of what scientists find happening in nature repeatedly in the same way without known exceptions. See scientific theories.

Well-tested and widely accepted explanations of data and laws.

A statistical procedure that when applied to a set of observations results in a probability value (p-value) relative to some hypothesis. Examples: Student’s t test, Wilcoxon’s test.

It considers that each member of the population has an equal and known chance of being selected by random sampling. This is mainly true for very large populations.

A representation of some real-world system that can also take on some aspects of reality for participants and users. Key features of simulations are that they represent real-world systems, contain rules and strategies that allow flexible and variable simulation activity to evolve, and the cost of error for participants is low, protecting them from the more severe consequences of mistakes.

A game in which participants are provided with a simulated environment in which to play.

Referring to an organism, means its dimensions. There are often expressed as length, but can be expressed in mass, volume or energy.

Group of individual organisms that are capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring in nature. It is the largest gene pool that exists under natural conditions.

The tendency of a community to return to its original state after a disturbance or to resist such disturbance. It includes the property of resilience (the speed with which a community returns to its former state after a perturbation) and resistance (the ability of a community to avoid displacement in the first place).

Is a measure of variability; it shows how much variation or dispersion a group of observation exhibit from the mean, or from an expected value. A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean; high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values. It is the square root of the variance.

A measure of the precision of the sample mean of the different samples obtained to estimate the population. Its value decreases as the sample size increases, as the chance of variation from the population mean is reduced. It depends on both the standard deviation and the sample size (SE = SD/√(sample size). The SE can be calculated to other statistic measures (descriptors) than the mean.

Refers to a statement on which hypothesis testing will be based. Particularly important statistical hypotheses include the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis.

A general term for the procedure of assessing whether sample data is consistent with the scientific hypothesis formulated.

Statistical procedures to determine whether there is enough evidence to "reject" or “accept” a statement or hypothesis.

Is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. The term is also used to represent the numerical characteristics of a sample (ex: the sample mean, variance…).

Develops the plot of the game as well as the characters and objects in the game and the settings that connect them into an emotional narrative that is gradually released as the game progresses.

A game that focuses on gameplay requiring careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory. 

A variant on simple random and systematic sampling methods and is used when there is a number of distinct subgroups, within each it is required that there is full representation. A stratified sample is constructed by classifying the population in sub-populations (or strata), based on some well-known characteristics of the population, such as age, gender or socio-economic status. The selection of elements is then made separately from within each strata, usually by random or systematic sampling methods.

Significance test for assessing hypothesis about population means; a single sample t-test is used in situations where it is required to test whether the mean of a population takes a particular value; an independent samples t-test is designed to test the equality of the means of two populations, when independent samples  are available from each population.

Is a frequently used variant of simple random sampling. When performing systematic sampling, every element from the list is selected from a randomly selected starting point. For example, if we have a listed population of 6000 members and wish to draw a sample of 2000, we would select every 30th (6000 divided by 200) person from the list. In practice, we would randomly select a number between 1 and 30 to act as our starting point.