Things We Did Not Cover
We covered a tiny piece of
Statistical Methods and Theory.
We did not cover
complex sampling methods - Stratified Random Sampling, Cluster Sampling,
Multiple Stage Sampling, among others. We did not address the necessary methods
and theory for the treatment of data based on these types of sampling methods.
We did not cover
the vast majority of statistical tests. We did not address any modeling theory.
We missed lots and lots of Probability Theory.
We did not cover
any of the Statistical Computing Packages - these include SAS, SPSS, EpiINFO, S and S Plus, Stata, Minitab,
StatExact, LogExact,
etcetera. In addition, many other packages such as Excel, Freelance and other
Spreadsheet Packages have some capability to do summary statistical analysis,
especially graphical methods.
We missed lots of
Descriptive Methods, and did not attempt to cover any Graphical Methods.
So What Can You Do
?
You can give a
credible answer to the question - what is a probability ?
You can present
some very basic Critical Thinking to statistical results coming from Clinical
Trials or Sample Surveys/Scientific Polls.
You can understand
the basic idea of a Statistical Test.
You can understand
some very simple Descriptive Statistics.
You can understand
the basic idea of Experiments and Replication.
You can understand
a basic form of Random Sampling - that the actual sample comes from a Family of
Samples, and that samples come from Populations.
You can understand
the problems associated with Non-Random Sampling.
You can understand
some very basic issues regarding Clinical Trials and Sample Survey Designs.