Getting Started and Getting Confident with Statistics (online)

Does the term “p value” make you anxious? Do you have doubts about your understanding of the statistics in the research articles you read or work with? This confidence-building course will help you be more comfortable with statistical concepts as you read research findings and interpret data.

Through lecture, discussion, and examinations of library science research papers and interactive online exercises, you’ll gain an understanding of basic statistical concepts and be better able to interpret conclusions of research articles.

You’ll see how a research question rules the statistical analysis that should be used and be able to identify appropriate statistical tests to answer research questions. You’ll appreciate how the validity of statistical conclusions is dependent on the quality of the data, as much as on the analysis. And you’ll leave the course with greater confidence in your ability to understand statistics!

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the meaning of basic statistical terms, such as standard deviation, t test, p value
• Describe the uses of basic statistical procedures
• Interpret statistics used in published research studies
• Interpret the data, formulas, and graphs in research articles

More information.