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