This 13th article of the Basics of Research series is first in a short series on statistical analysis. These articles will discuss creating your statistical analysis plan, levels of measurement, descriptive statistics, probability theory, inferential statistics, and general considerations for interpretation of the results of a statistical analysis.

The eld of statistics can be divided into two branches, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics, as its name suggests, is concerned with describing a population, or a sample from that population, in terms of numerical measures that are computed from data. Such a numerical measure is called a statistic. If the data used in the computation comes from the whole po...

Many statistical analyses benefit from the assumption that unconditional or conditional distributions are continuous and normal. Over fifty years ago in this journal, Lord (1955) and Cook (1959) chronicled departures from normality in educational tests, and Micerri (1989) similarly showed that the normality assumption is met rarely in educational and psychological practice. In this paper, the a...

Mouse local lymph node assay (LLNA, OECD TG429) is an alternative test replacing conventional guinea pig tests (OECD TG406) for the skin sensitization test but the use of a radioisotopic agent, (3)H-thymidine, deters its active dissemination. New non-radioisotopic LLNA, LLNA:BrdU-FCM employs a non-radioisotopic analog, 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU) and flow cytometry. For an analogous method, ...

Methods: A descriptive and quantitative retrospective cross-sectional study was made of the main causes for amputations performed in the period from January 1998 to January 2008 in Hospital de Base, São José do Rio Preto in under 15-yearold individuals. Data, including the age of the patient, gender, rehospitalizations or further procedures and the reason for surgery were obtained from hospital...

Methods: The research method was quantitative, empirical and descriptive, was carried out in Tartu University Hospital in the cardiac surgery, in the paediatric surgery and in the paediatric intensive care unit from 25 June to 23 September 2013. Participants (n=21) used the scale for assessing the infants postoperative pain during three months and gave feedback about the scale utility in practi...