Programme Description

This is a part-time modular course leading to the Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics. The course provides a broad introduction to the statistical ideas and methods relevant to data gathering and analysis in a wide variety of research areas as well as business and administration.

The intention is to provide participants with a practical grasp of statistics based on a sound knowledge of the underlying ideas and concepts. Graduates of the course should be well placed to apply the ideas and methods to which they have been introduced in their own work. To this end, all the material is presented in the context of practical examples from a wide range of applications.

The course covers most of the usual topics included in any of the standard elementary texts. In dealing with these, however, more emphasis than is usual in such textbooks is placed on the idea of an underlying statistical model. It is hoped that this emphasis will develop insight into the essential unity of the methods and avoid the all-too-common impression of there being a cookbook full of different statistical recipes for every possible occasion.