Course overview
This course will provide students with a hands-on opportunity to develop practical skills in planning and undertaking statistically robust scientific research. This course will build on foundational knowledge gained in level 1 statistics (STATS 1000 or STATS 1004) and practical experience gained in PLANT SC 2510WT Foundations in Plant Science. Through a number of practical activities, students will collect a variety of data (soil, plant, environmental) from experimental plots located at the Waite campus. Students will be provided with the theory behind rigorous experimental design and analysis and supported to implement this theory in practice. Experiments will be established to allow a range of different statistical analyses including parametric, non-parametric and multivariate analysis. Statistical analysis will be performed on data collected, and students will learn how to interpret and communicate the results to a variety of audiences.
Course learning outcomes
- Design small scale investigative studies
- Apply measurement and data collection protocols in sampling, surveys and experiments
- Use software to undertake advanced statisticl analysis
- Interpret, describe and explain multivariate interactions using statistics
- Effectively communicate research findings using appropriate language and terminology for a variety of audiences