Applied Data Analysis and Evaluation

Abstract

This chapter provides statistical teaching strategies for trainers who provide instruction and direction to practicing professionals. Current teaching models focus on teaching statistical concepts and how to conduct data analyses in isolation. As such, practicing healthcare professionals may understand statistical concepts and how to run specific tests, but lack an understanding of how to avoid and deal with the key issues prevalent in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting biomedical data. This chapter lays out a framework for how to teach statistical concepts and applied data analyses, utilizing examples relevant to the most common uses for biomedical data. Specifically, the reader will learn how to teach others to develop a primary research question and hypotheses, design a study, acquire and prepare data for analysis, and then conduct the appropriate analysis. Training resources such as a checklist of key concepts and a sample training template are provided.