3-day workshop: Basics in statistics

Training for all IRTG 1450 members and interested postdocs

Dr. Pete Czuppon

Statistical tools are at the core of scientific progress. Essentially every publication in the empirical life sciences today conducts statistical tests. To critically assess the validity of the results some basic statistical knowledge is necessary. This two-day workshop of “Basics in Statistics” has the aim to teach this knowledge and to provide the participants with tools to decide which statistical tests are appropriate to use in which contexts. The workshop will start with a general introduction to statistics and descriptive statistics. The philosophy of hypothesis testing will be covered and the most common tests for a variety of (relatively) simple experimental designs will be explained: chi-squared, t-test and ANOVA, as well as their non-parametric alternatives. Additionally, I will explain the basics of linear regression to show how correlations, or possibly even causation, between variables can be explored. No prior knowledge is necessary to take this course. Code examples will be provided in the programming language R, but no programming knowledge will be assumed, nor is the aim of the course to teach a specific computational tool to conduct the statistical tests.