Grant
Applications
If your research
involves the collection and/or analysis of data, your investigations
will need Statistics. Your grant application will not be competitive
if there is no mention of Statistics in it. It should answer
the following questions:
- What
data will you collect?
- What are the experimental units?
- Will
you record one variable per experimental unit, or several?
Will these variables be nominal, ordinal or interval/ratio
(sometimes called "continuous")?
- How
will these variables help you to answer your research questions?
- Is
there likely to be systematic variation between different
categories of experimental units (e.g., male and female
subjects, igneous and sedimentary rocks, large and small
companies)? If so, how are you allowing for this? You should
justify your intentions.
- Do
you need a control or placebo group? You may need to explain
why you are/are not including such groups.
- How
many experimental units will you use (in each group, if
applicable)? You should justify this figure. To do so will
probably require you to discuss and quantify the types of
variability that might arise in your data, and the precision
that you need in order to answer your research questions.
- How
will you record and store the data (in the short term and
long term)?
- What
assumptions are you making about the statistical properties
of the data? What justification is there for these assumptions?
- How will you analyse the data? (Is the method of analysis
appropriate for the assumptions you are making?)
- What
conclusions will you draw from the analysis?
- How
will these answer your research questions?
If you don't know what some of these questions mean, or you
haven't thought about them, or if you have thought about them
but would like to have a statistical consultant look over
your answers to see that they "look right", we suggest
that you make an appointment to see one of the statisticians
with the Statistical Consulting Service. It won't cost you
anything, and the hour
or so that it requires may pay rich dividends later on.
To make an appointment, please ring Kerrie Gamble on x4308.
Updated
July 02
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