Biostatistics 510: Statistical Computing Packages

Biostat 510 covers simple data management tasks and basic statistical techniques using the statistical software packages, SAS and SPSS.

The following is a list of some topics covered in Biostatistics 510:

Data management methods include:

  • reading in raw data
  • importing data from Excel and other data bases
  • recoding variables
  • transformations of variables
  • creation of dummy variables
  • processing data by groups
  • merging data sets

    The syntax for using basic statistical techniques and interpretation of output include:

  • simple descriptive statistics
  • paired and independent samples t-tests
  • correlation
  • linear regression
  • the use of dummy variables in regression models
  • oneway and twoway factorial anova models
  • simple contingency table methods
  • logistic regression

    Graphical methods will also be used for:

  • checking the distribution of variables
  • histograms, barcharts, and boxplots
  • simple scatter plots
  • regression diagnostics
  • identifying outliers