There is a lot of terminology around quantitative research.
The table below outlines 4 of the key terms.
| Hypothesis | Your proposed relationship between two variables that you are going to test, e.g. The instances of illegal drug use of teenagers who are members of a gang will be higher than the instances of illegal drug use of teenagers who are not gang members. |
| Population | The entire set of people or events to which your hypothesis could apply, e.g. All undergraduate students in the UK. |
| Sample | A subset of a whole population that you are looking at e.g. Psychology undergraduate students studying at Teesside University. |
| Variable | Anything that varies and can be measured. It is the characteristic (or attribute) which you would expect to differ from at least one of the others in your sample e.g. hair colour, height, age. |
Many textbooks on research will have a Glossary that defines statistical terms.
See the link below for a more comprehensive list.