About this course

This course introduces you to the fundamentals of probability and statistical methods as a tool used in statistical analysis and data science. It is for you if you are new to the software R and the RStudio environment and interested in data analysis and data science. A knowledge of statistics at the level of a university degree maths student is a helpful starting point, but not necessary if you have a good grounding in mathematics more broadly. The course aims to give you a gentle and enjoyable introduction to statistical methods. 

Learning outcomes

By completing the course, you will be better able to:

• Explain the role of statistical models in inference from data.
• Apply appropriate tools for numerical and graphical summaries using RStudio, and interpret the results.
• Investigate the stability of frequencies in computer simulations through experimental justification and ‘measurement’ of probability.
• Improve your data analysis skills by engaging with peer review as a learning activity.

Topics covered

Week 1: Differences between data and information, the need for statistical models, randomisation and unbiased data collection, statistical intuition and good practice skills to deal with data misrepresentation, misconception or incompleteness.

Week 2: Exploratory data analysis using R software in RStudio to produce numerical and graphical summaries for datasets, recognising different data types, and normal or ‘skewed’ data using box plots and histograms.

Week 3: Experimental support of probability, how to conduct computer simulations using R software in RStudio and improve your data analysis skills through peer review as a process.

As a first step into statistical methods, the material in this course includes a lot of detail. This is to give you the full experience of the learning available in the MSc level course that is part of the University of Leeds online MSc in Genomic Medicine and Data Science.  

If you enjoy this course, you may look at the other two open courses taken from the MSc Genomic Medicine with Data Science, Python for Data science and High Throughput Technologies. These three courses will give you a good taster of our full MSc programme.