Draft Agenda
9:00
Introduction and Basic Statistical Concepts
We will discuss the difference between exploratory statistics,
confirmatory statistics, and statistics used as the basis of
decision-making. A
variety of methods for visualizing and interpreting data will be
presented.
10:30 Break
10:45 Confidence
Intervals and Hypothesis Testing
Confidence intervals are often used to provide a “protective”
estimate of a parameter such as the average concentration of a
chemical at a site.
Hypothesis testing is a statistical method saying with known
confidence that something is or is not true, based on observed
data. We will
discuss the statistical logic that underlies these two
techniques for assessing data, one- and two-tailed hypothesis
tests, the relationship between hypothesis tests and confidence
intervals, and the use and misuse of confidence intervals and
hypothesis tests.
12:00 Lunch
1:00
Dealing with Non-Detects
There are two basic issues to consider with non-detect data:
Why are they censored (reported as non-detect)?
What should be done with
them? We will
briefly discuss the typical reasons for non-detects, and then
focus on how to handle non-detect data.
Several data analysis techniques that account for
non-detects will be presented, along with explanations of their
pros and cons.
2:30
Break
2:45
Statistical Software Options
SAS? Minitab?
A high-end HP graphing calculator?
Grandpa’s slide rule?
There are many choices of software available for
performing statistical analyses.
We’ll discuss a range of available tools from Excel (Yes!
You can do statistics with the software you already have
on your computer!), to GiSdT (a free website the presenters
developed that you are welcome to use), and finally R (a very
powerful and flexible open-source statistical program for those
souls brave enough to overcome a steep learning curve).
4:00
Adjourn
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