Role of Statistics in Scientific Research

1. 1. Role of Statistics in Scientific Research A Special Topic Discussion By; Waruna

Kodituwakku & Harsha Perera
2. 2. "Statistics is the grammar of science.” Karl Pearson "If your experiment needs statistics,
you ought to have done a better experiment....“ Ernest Rutherford
3. 3. Questions What is statistics? Why Study Statistics? What is the importance of
statistics in scientific research? What is the role of statistics in research? Describe the
importance of statistics in different fields of study
4. 4. Questions Contd. What are the statistical terms used in research studies? What are the
misuses of statistics in a research? How effectively present stat findings using tools such as
tables, graphs etc.
5. 5. What is Statistics?
6. 6. “Statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and
communicating uncertainty; and it thereby provides the navigation essential for controlling
the course of scientific and societal advances” (Davidian and Louis, 2012) “Statistics is the
study of the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation and organization of data”.
(Dodge, Y. (2006) The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms)
7. 7. Statistical methods can be used to summarize or describe a collection of data; this is
called descriptive statistics. In addition, patterns in the data may be modeled in a way that
accounts for randomness and uncertainty in the observations, and are then used to draw
inferences about the process or population being studied; this is called inferential statistics.
8. 8. "Applied statistics" contains descriptive statistics and the application of inferential
statistics. “Theoretical statistics” consist of logical arguments underlying justification of
approaches to statistical inference. “Mathematical statistics” contains the manipulation of
probability distributions necessary for deriving results related to methods of estimation and
various aspects of computational statistics and the design of experiments.
9. 9. Why Study Statistics?
10. 10. • Knowledge in statistics provides you with the necessary tools and conceptual
foundations in quantitative reasoning to extract information intelligently from this sea of data.
• Statistical methods and analyses are often used to communicate research findings and to
support hypotheses and give credibility to research methodology and conclusions. • It is
important for researchers and also consumers of research to understand statistics so that
they can be informed, evaluate the credibility and usefulness of information, and make
appropriate decisions.
11. 11. What is the importance of statistics in scientific research?
12. 12. • Statistics play a vital role in researches. For example statistics can used as in data
collection, analysis, interpretation, explanation and presentation. Use of statistics will guide
researchers in research for proper characterization, summarization, presentation and
interpretation of the result of research. • Statistics provides a platform for research as to;
How to go about your research, either to consider a sample or the whole population, the
Techniques to use in data collection and observation, how to go about the data description
(using measure of central tendency).
13. 13. • Statistical methods and analyses are often used to communicate research findings and
to support hypotheses and give credibility to research methodology and conclusions. • It is
important for researchers and also consumers of research to understand statistics so that
they can be informed, evaluate the credibility and usefulness of information, and make
appropriate decisions.
14. 14. • Statics is very important when it comes to the conclusion of the research. • In this
aspect the major purposes of statistics are to help us understand and describe phenomena
in our word and to help us draw reliable conclusions about those phenomena.
15. 15. What is the role of statistics in scientific research?
16. 16. Describe the importance of statistics in different fields of study.
17. 17. Statistics has important role in determining the existing position of per capita income,
unemployment, population growth rate, housing, schooling medical facilities etc…in a
country. Now statistics holds a central position in almost every field like Industry, Commerce,
Trade, Physics, Chemistry, Economics, Mathematics, Biology, Botany, Psychology,
Astronomy, Information Technology etc…, so application of statistics is very wide.
18. 18. Specialties have evolved to apply statistical theory and methods to various disciplines.
So there are different fields of application of statistics. Some of those are described below. •
Astrostatistics is the discipline that applies statistical analysis to the understanding of
astronomical data. • Biostatistics is a branch of biology that studies biological phenomena
and observations by means of statistical analysis, and includes medical statistics. •
Econometrics is a branch of economics that applies statistical methods to the empirical study
of economic theories and relationships. • Business analytics is a rapidly developing business
process that applies statistical methods to data sets to develop new insights and
understanding of business performance & opportunities.