Summary

You will be introduced to the basic concepts of study design, data presentation and analysis as utilised within health research. You will also be provided with the tools to effectively read and interpret published research and to help to undertake your own research studies. Specific topics covered include: designing research studies including allocation/randomisation procedures, blinding and confounding; summarising data (means, medians, and measures of spread); displaying data (why and how); the normal distribution and normal tables; making inferences; significance testing and confidence intervals; paired and unpaired t-tests; non-parametric analyses; one-way ANOVA; analysis of categoric data; an introduction to bootstrapping techniques; and regression analysis.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

After successfully completing the module, you should be able to:

Outline and apply the basic concepts of study design and statistical analysis in medical research
	Identify and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of competing study types
	Interpret study findings
	Develop, conduct and interpret their own health research
	Analyse data using SPSS and interpret results.
Who is this module for?

This is a core module for the MSc Paediatrics and Child Health, MSc Advanced Physiotherapy, MSc Cell and Gene therapy, MRes Child Health, MSc Infancy and Early Childhood Development and MSc Personalised Medicine.

Teaching and Learning Methods

This module will be delivered as a series of workshops with a strong interactive element. You will generate some data and use this data to illustrate statistical concepts. The course will be accompanied by comprehensive notes and a moodle page with further information, interactive excel sheets to help with some calculations and additional practical worksheets with solutions. There are also four optional drop-in sessions for one-on-one statistical support with projects.

Assessment

This module will be assessed by a 3 hour computer based exam (multiple choice questions and SPSS based questions)

Selected Reading List

Practical Statistics for Medical Research, DG Altman, Chapman & Hall, 2018. ISBN 9780412276309

Essential Medical Statistics, BR Kirkwood & JAC Sterne, Blackwell Science, 2010. ISBN 9781444392845

Presenting medical statistics from proposal to publication: A step-by-step guide. J Peacock & S Kerry, Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN 9780198779100

Discovering statistics using SPSS. Andy Field, Sage Publications Ltd, 2017. ISBN 9781526422965