791-206 Statistical Methods I

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Objectives:

The objective of this subject is to enable students to:

• gain a comprehensive appreciation to the role of statistics in scientific inquiry;

• develop an understanding of the concepts, methods and procedures employed in descriptive statistics;

• explain probability and probability distributions - characteristics and their applications;

• use statistical software package for data tabulations, description and analysis.

Content:

Role of statistics in scientific inquiry; statistical inference, characterisation of data, quantitative and qualitative observations, nominal, ordinal and ratio scales. Collection, organisation and presentation of data: descriptive statistics - measures of location and variation, use of standard error and co-efficient of variation for interpretation of data. Symmetrical and asymmetrical distributions - measures of skewness. Probability and probability distributions: Binomial and normal distributions - characteristics and applications, standard normal - curve - Z-test, confidence limits and confidence interval. Hypothesis testing: concepts and principles - introduction of agricultural experimental methods.

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