Suppose you conduct a study to compare an outcome between two independent groups of people, but you realised later that the groups were unexpectedly different at baseline. This difference might affect how you interpret the findings. For example, you measured muscle stiffness in people with stroke and in healthy people. At the end of the study, you realised that on
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Suppose you are planning to conduct a repeated-measures study, where outcomes are measured from the same subject at more than one point in time and the average within-subject effect is calculated using a paired t-test or linear regression. How might you calculate how many subjects need to be tested in order to find an effect? Similar to calculating sample size
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Scientists often plan for studies by calculating how many subjects or units need to be tested in order to find an effect. That is, they plan for a study using statistical power according to principles of hypothesis testing. Sample size calculations are usually required in ethics applications and grant proposals to justify the study. We previously learned how to calculate
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Reporting bias (ie. bias arising when dissemination of research findings is influenced by the results) is thought to be common in biomedical and medical research. However, exactly how common it is has been difficult to quantify. Albarqouni and colleagues examined how commonly reporting bias occurs by examining the distribution of p values in medical research studies, and compared these distributions
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The Conversation recently published a nice piece by Louis and Chapman on common statistical misinterpretations and how they can be avoided. Here is summary of the main points: Problem Reason Solution 1. Assuming small differences are meaningful Most small differences are due to chance, not meaningful differences Ask for the margin of error (ie. half of the 95% CI): if
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Many areas of neuroscience require computational techniques to process or analyse data. Some journals including the Nature family of journals and BioMed Central are encouraging investigators to share computer code and programs to improve scientific reproducibility, but these practices are not always adopted. For complex projects with multiple collaborators, it may be unclear what or how much can be shared.
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