Takeaways from Editage's webinar "Understanding Types of Research Data" with Abdulrahman Niazy and Monika Sobocan
Editage organized a webinar “Understanding Types of Research Data” targeted at researchers based in Saudi Arabia, on March 15, 2023. This is the second of a series of webinars for researchers from this region.
The keynote speaker Dr Abdurrahman Niazy, Associate Professor, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, emphasized the importance of government efforts to boost research in Saudi Arabia, which includes spending 2.5% of the country's budget on R&D. He urged Saudi researchers to focus on creating research outcomes that would be useful for the country, rather than just producing research papers.
See also: 6 Top questions from Editage's recent webinar "Unpacking Data Distributions"
The lead trainer, Monika Sobocan, MD, is a medical researcher and educator dividing her time between the University Medical Centre Maribor, Slovenia and the Queen Mary University of London, UK. She is a medical doctor with over 5 years of experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research. She has been recognized for her scientific work by a prestigious national fellowship for women in science.
In the webinar, Dr Sobocan highlighted the importance of valid and reliable data, as well as assessing whether the groups being analyzed are big enough to gain such data. She explained the different types of statistical methods, including descriptive and inferential statistics, and the different types of analyses, such as univariate, bivariate, and multivariate. She also discussed Type I and Type II errors and offered practical approaches to data analysis.
Dr Sobocan advised researchers to use best practices when analyzing data, such as entering data into a single sheet, keeping one row per subject, and using tests that have been used before but understanding their limitations. She also provided a cheat sheet for researchers to help them pick suitable tests, and outlined tests that she called "prescription only," which should only be used by researchers with a good knowledge of the method and high-quality data.
See also: Understanding types of data in biomedical research: An interview with Dr Monika Sobocan
Dr Sobccan emphasized the need for researchers to focus on clinically important and meaningful results, rather than just statistically significant results. She also advised researchers to carefully consider sample representativeness and whether potential confounders have been controlled for. Finally, she provided tips on what statistics to compute for different studies.
Interested in deepening and broadening your knowledge of statistics? The next webinar in our series, “How Biostatistics Can Enhance Institutional Performance & Efficiency” will be conducted on March 30, by Dr Haidy Effat, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Egypt. Click here to register.
Would you like a 1:1 consultation with an expert statistician? Check out Editage’s Statistical Analysis & Review Service.
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