208-411 Research Philosophies and Statistics

Eligibility for honours or postgraduate degree; 202-202 Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis or equivalent

This subject should give students knowledge of a range of research methodologies and underlying philosophies, and sophisticated statistical tools to design laboratory and field experiments and field surveys, and effectively and appropriately analyse these data sets in agriculture, horticulture and land management.

Upon completion of the subject, students should be able to:

• formulate research questions and hypotheses, and implement hypotheses testing, to satisfy research needs in different disciplines, including field research and economics;

• recognise, understand and apply concepts of study design (such as observational studies versus designed experiments, confounding, replication, randomisation, and blocking), and discuss the effect of design concepts on the interpretation of results;

• determine the appropriate statistical methodology to use, including parametric and non-parametric methods, and confirm that data sets meet the underlying assumptions of the statistical model chosen;

• display an understanding of the purpose and limitation of inference, and be able to use the main tools of inference to analyse and interpret data;

• interpret statistical program outputs in agricultural, horticultural and land management contexts

A 3-hour examination (50%), one assignment of up to 3000 words or equivalent (50%).

• JH Zar, Biostatistical Analysis. 4th ed., 1999.