Hi,

I am after a statistics book that will explain the basics and help me choose suitable tests for my data. I'm doing a PhD in neuroscience so my data is all from animal models or cell culture. Ideally I would like something that will help me use a stats package to analyse my results (I have access to SPSS and graphpad). I found one book on amazon that seems to be popular, Choosing and Using Statistics: A Biologist's Guide by Calvin Dytham. Has anyone used this book?

Any recommendations would be most appeciated, I have looked at the links given on this forum which seem very good but I'd prefer to use a book (assuming I can get one at a reasonable price!).

Cheers

h

Better to take a basic statistics course first to understand the knowledge and concepts for general methods before using stats package. The stats package will give you numbers anyway no matter what data you input.

The only course I have been offered was not very useful to me, it was focussed on clinical trials. I have very little funding and so was hoping to find a book that could help me out with at least the basics. I will have a look for other courses at my uni though to see what is out there, you are right that would help.

Give you some examples, you need understand what requirements are satistified for t-test, F-test, and chi-square (or fisher's exact), or non-parameter test such as wilcoxon, regression and correlation (parameter or nonparameter), what sample sizes you need for your study and how to calculate.

Thanks for your advice. I have done some statistics in the past so am hoping a book will help refresh my memory. We have a stats advisor in our department so I think I will try and refresh my memory with some reading and then go and talk to him.

Good idea. Consult your stats advisor when you are not quite sure. Or you can drop a line to me in my email with your data, I can help you out.