791-206 Statistical Methods I

Information Technology II.

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; and

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

The content includes:

• 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 coefficient 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; and

• hypothesis testing: concepts and principles, introduction of agricultural experimental methods.

Assignments (20%) and 2.5-hour examination (80%).