Quantitative Methods in Biological and Environmental Science

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Explain the concepts of the null hypothesis, p-value, statistical power, type I & II errors, significance and non-significance, and draw appropriate conclusions for the hypotheses being tested.
• Outline the nature of scientific knowledge and the processes of framing and testing hypotheses.
• Choose the appropriate statistical test for a variety of simple problems, and plan and design experiments before collecting data, taking account of the statistical techniques you will use.
• Calculate logarithms and other simple transformations and the equation of a straight line.
• Calculate the mean, median, mode, standard deviation, standard error, confidence intervals and inter-quartile ranges of a sample.
• Draw conclusions from the outputs of statistical analyses.
• Enter data into the open-source R environment, check for errors, write and use R scripts, and plot, label and annotate graphs.
• Perform simple non-parametric and parametric statistical tests of dependency, variance and correlation, using the R environment
• Explain the difference between parametric and non-parametric statistics, and the assumptions that underlie them.
• Use a statistical model in R to make a statement about predicted relationships.

Scientific method and theories, hypothesis testing, biological data, simple data handling and spreadsheets, graphics and report writing, simple statistical tests, non-parametric tests, contingency tests, multivariate methods, one-way and two-way analysis of variance, statistical modelling, regression and correlation, how to plan an analysis and choose an appropriate test.

Teaching and learning will involve lectures, measurement of biological samples, computer-based practicals.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.