COURSES > ANALYTICS

Understanding Statistical Analysis

Statistics for Non-Statisticians

Chaired by
Alex Bottle

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All of our training courses can be tailored specifically for your team or organisation and presented at your offices, at another suitable location or virtually.


Overview

As the public sector continues to depend on statistics to provide better services, it is crucial for public sector professionals to embrace a more statistical mindset to drive performance and enhance decision making.

By being able to identify common data flaws and key statistical concepts, organisations can make informed decisions, solve problems, and measure the effectiveness of strategies and forecasting plans.

Led by experienced Statistician, Alex Bottle, our highly interactive and CPD certified Understanding Statistical Analysis course equips you with the skills to avoid these errors, ask better questions of your data and get better value for money.

Leave the day with an understanding of key statistical concepts and the confidence to make more informed decisions, create simple but impactful forecasting plans and interpret data-rich reports.


Statistician


Alex is an experienced statistician, speaker and tutor who uses a range of data sources and presentational methods to help hospitals and clinicians improve their performance.

After his first job as a statistician with a large pharmaceutical company, Alex moved to Imperial College London and gained a PhD in Epidemiology. He was seconded to the Shipman Public Inquiry to investigate how statistics could be used to detect GPs like Shipman with high death rates. Since 2002, his research has focused on measuring the quality and safety of healthcare using large databases.

Alex Bottle


Learning Outcomes

  • Understand basic statistical terms and concepts

  • Ask more relevant questions of your data to enhance decision making

  • Understand how to analyse statistics to improve the performance of your organisation

  • Learn how to examine trends and effectively forecast to make more effective business decisions






All the Understanding ModernGov courses are Continuing Professional Development (CPD) certified, with signed certificates available upon request for event.

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Agenda

09:25 - 09:30 Registration

09:30 - 09:45 Trainer’s Welcome and Clarification of Learning Objectives

09:45 - 10:45 First Steps: Some Basic Statistical Terms

  • What is statistical thinking and why does it matter?

  • Types and examples of quantitative data: continuous, categorical, count

  • Some common distributions in the real world, e.g. normal, bimodal, uniform, skewed

  • When averages are misleading

  • Key terms such as mean, mode, median, percentile, standard deviation, range, ratio, probability and risk, odds, accuracy vs precision

10:45 - 11:00 Morning Break

11:00 - 12:00 Understanding Variation 1: Describing Variation and Randomness

  • Quantifying variation

  • What is randomness? Why and when is it a problem

  • Exercise: quick demo of randomness in action

  • The role of chance and how to assess it (hypothesis testing)

  • Exercise on assessing how much variation exists between teams

12:00 - 13:00 Understanding Variation 2: Sampling Strategies and Bias

  • Options for surveying customers and staff: sampling strategies

  • Measurement error and precarious data

  • Exercise: how satisfied are my customers?

13:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 14:45 Associations and Trends

  • Correlation vs. causation

  • The linear trend: concept of least squares and choosing line of best fit

  • Types of trends: linear, exponential rise or fall, step change, seasonal, other non-linear

  • Exercise: what’s the trend here?

14:45 - 15:00 Afternoon Break

15:00 - 16:00 Forecasting and Getting It Wrong

The Trainer will facilitate a group discussion around the ways in which forecasts can go wrong and the ways to reduce the risk of this happening

  • Extrapolating from a linear trend

  • How to choose between linear and non-linear trends in Excel

  • Common cognitive biases that affect data interpretation and decision making

16:00 - 16:15 Feedback, Evaluation & Close

  • Effective Report Writing, Senior Engineering Specialist, Eastleigh Borough Council

    “This course provided an excellent understanding of how to write effectively and why it is important to do so.”

  • Effective Proofing and Editing Skills: Senior Events Officer, King's College London

    “I would really recommend the course. Sue is a fantastic trainer and the day passed by far too quickly. Lots of helpful resources to take away, also very impressed with the smooth transition to online learning. Thank you!

  • Effective Data Visualisation: Corporate Performance Management Officer, Carmarthenshire County Council

    “I have learned a great deal with many tips and ideas to enable to improve the authority’s reports”

  • Effective Business Process Mapping: Internal Quality and Improvement Officer, Social Work England

    “It was a fun course to take a part in. There was a lot of information given, and it was done in an engaging way with lots of interactivity, even over zoom. i really enjoyed the course and learned lots from it.”

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