Scientific Research Methodology and Applied statistics PHLT 4213

Course description:

This course is designed to introduce the students to a variety of topics related to the scientific research, including: research types, components, methods, writing requirements, and data presentation. The student will be trained on developing a research question and objectives that are based literature review. The course will include the right approaches for describing data, discussing results, and following the evidence to develop conclusions that are free from speculations and incoherent theories. Part of the course will be focused on structuring of thesis and following the standard writing techniques.
The second part will be offered in the lab, which will be focused on teaching applied statistics principles using SPSS. This part of the course involves details of several sampling designs, different measurement and scaling techniques and multidimensional scaling. It will study processing and analysis of data. Sampling fundamentals, along with the theory of estimation, parametric tests of hypotheses, and Chi-square test. Case studies are introduced and studied in order to explain the necessity of using the aforementioned statistical analysis techniques.

Course Aims:

  • Provide students with basic skills in conducting scientific research.
  • Provide students with the scientific method in the writing of research.
  • Describe the goals of various statistical methodologies conceptually.
  • Apply statistical techniques in the context of everyday life and further studies in their discipline.
  • Understand different sampling strategies.
  • Use descriptive statistics and graphical methods to summarize data accurately.
  • Use inferential statistics to make valid judgments based on the data available.
  • Select the appropriate course tools to analyze a particular problem.

Course outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:  
  • Identify what is meant by scientific research, types, and stages.
  • Perform Cognitive skills (thinking and analysis).
  • Collect and analyze data.
  • Determine the research problem and goals.
  • Use quantitative methods in scientific research, Use the Internet in collecting data.
  • Discuss the basic concepts of Applied Statistics and functions and objectives.
  • Discuss the Probability distributions.
  • Discuss the Statistical distributions.
  • Learn about Estimation.
  • Implement hypothesis testing.
  • Discuss Analysis of variance.