BIOL 330/L Design and Analysis
of Experiments
Click here to download
zipped folder of data: www.csun.edu/~hcbio028/Data2007.zip
As taught by Paul
Wilson
Goals
In fancy terminology, this is a class on the scientific method as executed
by biologists. There will be some general philosophical discussion of
how biologists go about using data, but these moments when we look at
the big-picture will be supported by many hours of rather mundane (and
I think easy) work in which you will practice handling data. Practicing
data analysis makes it tangible, and I believe is the best way for most
people to learn to be scientists. You will learn the statistical methods
that are the most common in biological research. This will allow you to
better understand many primary research reports such as are published in
scientific journals and such as are presented at scientific conferences.
The following phrases will carry meaning for you: P value,
null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, type I error, type II error, critical
value, goodness of fit test, sign test, test of independence, contingency
table, normality, homoscedasticity, mean, median, sum of squares, degrees
of freedom, variance, standard deviation, standard error, confidence limit,
paired design, t-test, two-sample design, ANOVA, correlation, covariance,
sum of products, regression, dependent versus independent variable, binomial
distribution, logistic model, R2, etc. You will
also learn how to extract meaning from many commonly presented graphs and
tables. Aside from learning to be a consumer of biological research, you
will learn how to analyze your own data and design your own experiments,
as long as they are fairly simple. Obviously, there is much more to the analysis
of biological data than can be fit into one course, but the basics that I
will cover are useful to many physiologists and ecologists, less so to geneticists
and systematists who often need other methods. I would like the course to
be very practical, so I’ve set aside a large amount of time at the end of
the semester for you to practice what you’ve learned. If it were a
class on driving cars, this would be the time spent practicing how to drive
after you’ve learned the rules of the road and what the controls on the
automobile are supposed to do. I want you to be excellent drivers, careful
and effective. The lessons for the last month of class will be designed
as practice after I have had an opportunity to meet you and understand your
interests and aptitudes.
Book
I have written a short book for you: A Repertoire of Biostatistics:
lean lectures and exercises to build intuition. The lessons are integrated
this with the problem sets that we will help you do during lab.
Working together
For the problem sets, you may work singly or in pairs. You may even
turn in one paper for the two members of a team. However, I request that
before the first exam, you pair up with a different person for each problem
set. I want you to help each other, but I don’t want it to always be the
same team.
Grades
1/7 th of your grade will be based on Exam 1, 1/7th on Exam 2, 1/7th
on Exam 3, and 1/7th on Exam 4. 2/7ths will be based on turning in problems
on time (penalties will be made if you do not turn them in on time, which
is for your own good). The remaining 1/7th of the grade is for attending
on time and participation (going to the library, giving little oral reports,
holding up to discussions in class). I will give +’s and –‘s to show
fine gradations of performance.