COURSE CODE: SBBS 305
COURSE TITLE: BIOSTATISTICS
CREDITS: 2
LECTURER: DR. YEBOAH BOATENG E.
E-MAIL:
[email protected]COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course provides an introduction to the basic concepts of statistical ideas and methods that
aims to equip students to carry out common statistical procedures and to follow statistical
reasoning in their fields of study. It will enable students to critically read and understand
statistical analysis in research articles. The emphasis is on understanding the relevance and use
of statistics in health sciences. The course will help them to understand applications of
fundamental concepts to real world situations.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
1. Summarize and interpret data visually through appropriate statistical graphs
2. Apply various common statistical methods in analyzing data
3. Interpret analyzed data
4. Use basic probability laws for both inferential and descriptive analysis and the role they play
in nurses’ research.
5. Describe sampling distributions and the central limit theorem 27
6. Describe how samples can be used to estimate population parameters from a given data.
7. Discuss statistical inference using confidence intervals and tests of significance.
8. Examine correlations and linear relationships of explanatory and response variables.
COURSE CONTENT
1. Nature of statistics
Some basic concepts, Types of variables, Measurement scales, Methods of data collection
2. Summarize and interpret data visually through appropriate statistical graphs.
Organization of Data, Graphical Representation of Data, Measures of Central Tendency,
Quartiles and Percentiles, Measures of Dispersions, Measures of Position, Shapes of distributions
3. Use of basic probability laws for both inferential and descriptive analysis and the role
they play in nurses’ research.
Random Experiments, Sample Space and events, Operations of events, Classical definition of
probability, The relative frequency definition of probability, Probability laws, Two set problems,
Conditional probability, The multiplication law of probability, Independent events and Bayes’
theorem
4. Describe sampling distributions and the central limit theorem.
The concept of random variables, The probability distribution of a discrete random variable, The
cumulative distribution function of a random variable, Mean and variance of discrete probability
distributions, The binomial distribution, Poisson distribution, Continuous probability
distributions and The normal distribution
5. Describe how samples can be used to estimate population parameters from a given data.
Statistical inference, Random sampling, Sampling distribution of the mean, Estimation of a
population mean, Estimation of the difference between two population means, Sampling
distribution of the variance, Estimation of a population variance, Confidence interval for the ratio
of the variances of the two normally distributed populations, Estimation of a population
proportion, Estimation of the difference between two population proportions.
6. Discuss statistical inference using confidence intervals and tests of significance.
General concepts, tests concerning a population mean, The relationship between tests of
hypothesis and confidence intervals, Tests on the difference between two population means, The
paired t-test, Tests Concerning a population variance, Tests on the ratio of two population
variance, Tests concerning two population proportions, The use of P-values in hypothesis
testing, Analysis of frequencies, Test of independence
7. Examine correlations and linear relationships of explanatory and response variables.
Simple linear regression and correlations analysis.
STUDENT EVALUATION
Continuous Assessment- 40%
End of Year Examination 60%
READING LIST
1. Bernard Rosner 2010. Fundamentals of Biostatistics, Seventh edition. BROOKS/COLE
CENGAGE Learning.
2. Andy Field 2009. Discovering Statistics Using SPSS, Third Edition. SAGE Publications Ltd.
3. Wayne W. D. 2009. Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis in the Health Sciences, Ninth
Edition, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
4. Triola, M. M. & TRIOLA, M. F. 2006. Biostatistics for the Biological and Health Sciences,
Boston, Pearson.
5. Harvey, M. 1995. Intuitive Biostatistics, New York, Oxford University Press, Inc.
6. Wheelan, C. J. 2013. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data, New York, W. W.
Norton & Company.
7. Wassertheil-Smoller, S. and Smoller, J. (2015). Biostatistics and Epidemiology: A primer for
Health and Biomedical professionals. Fourth Edition. Springer
8. Scott, I. (2014). Statistics for Healthcare Professionals- An Introduction. Second edition.
SAGE Publications Ltd. London.
9. Kros, J.F., and Rosenthal, D.A. (2016) Statistics for Health Care Management and
Administration: working with Excel. Third Edition. Jossey-Bass. A Wiley Imprint. San
Francisco
10. Bowers, D. (2014). Medical statistics for scratch: An Introduction for Health professionals.
Third Edition. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
11. Bryman A, Cramer D. (2005) Quantitative data analysis with SPSS 12 and 13 A Guide for
Social Scientists. 3rd Edition. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, USA and Canada.
12. Hek G, Moule P. (2006) Making sense of research: An introduction for health and social care
practitioners. 3rd Edition. London: Sage Publications. 7. Gray DE. (2009) Doing research in the
real world. 2nd Edition. SAGE Publications Limited
