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Statistics in Research

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Definition of statistics:
Statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty; and it thereby provides the navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances (Davidian, M. and Louis, T. A., 10.1126/science.1218685).
Statisticians apply statistical thinking and methods to a wide variety of scientific, social, and business endeavors in such areas as astronomy, biology, education, economics, engineering, genetics, marketing, medicine, psychology, public health, sports, among many. Many economic, social, political, and military decisions cannot be made without statistical techniques, such as the design of experiments to gain federal approval of a newly …show more content…

Statisticians recommend that experiments compare (at least) one new treatment with a standard treatment or control, to allow an unbiased estimate of the difference in treatment effects. 2. Design of experiments, using blocking to reduce the influence of confounding variables, and randomized assignment of treatments to subjects to allow unbiased estimates of treatment effects and experimental error. At this stage, the experimenters and statisticians write the experimental protocol that shall guide the performance of the experiment and that specifies the primary analysis of the experimental data. 3. Performing the experiment following the experimental protocol and analyzing the data following the experimental protocol. 4. Further examining the data set in secondary analyses, to suggest new hypotheses for future study. 5. Documenting and presenting the results of the study. In contrast, an observational study does not involve experimental manipulation. This type of study typically uses a survey to collect observations about the area of interest and then performs statistical analysis.
Statistics is applied in the following ways in research: 1. In science
A very important component of the Scientific Method is the statistical analysis of your collected data or observations. How you analyze the data, whether done correctly or incorrectly, will ultimately determine the conclusions from your research.

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