Research Design and Methods
Biol 504: Research design and methods (1-3 credit hours)
Diane Shakes, Drew LaMar, and Matthias Leu
Wednesday 5:00-6:20 in ISC 3291
Description: This course has three goals. First, graduate students will learn to employ a rigorous experimental design when developing their research. Second, graduate students will improve/refresh their statistical analytical techniques. Third, students will be exposed to common pitfalls in design of molecular/cell experiments. Research design is the first important step toward successful research. As R. A. Fisher put it: “To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a postmortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.” Overall, topics included in this course are relevant to all sub-disciplines within Biology.
Sample lecture topics: The first section (1-credit) includes a discussion of experimental design, data exploration, and data management and storage. Topics discussed will cover robust research practices, key approaches in experimental design (replication, sample size, data independence), common designs, data exploration (missing values, outliers, transformations), and how to manage and properly store data. Students will also critically evaluate robustness of experimental designs from published papers.
Sample lecture topics: The first section (1-credit) includes a discussion of experimental design, data exploration, and data management and storage. Topics discussed will cover robust research practices, key approaches in experimental design (replication, sample size, data independence), common designs, data exploration (missing values, outliers, transformations), and how to manage and properly store data. Students will also critically evaluate robustness of experimental designs from published papers.
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