Statistical analysis can be thought of as finding
information, in a large amount of
data.
Data Mining or Knowledge Discovery is also a form of statistical analysis.
When one combs data and comes into a conclusion, how sure can you be of that conclusion? Did you make a
type II error? Was there enough data to make a conclusion? All this comes from statistical analysis. When submitting experimental results to technical
journals, statistical analysis is usually expected with the data.
The field of statistical analysis is huge, with many different methods and approaches to analyze data.
Some common approaches that might be taught in a basic stats course are:
- Random variables (which is neither random, nor a variable)
- The normal, binomial, gamma and exponential distributions
- ANOVA: ANalysis Of VAriance
- The paired t-test
- One-tailed test
- Chi-Squared test
- Regression Analysis
- Confidence interval
- Hypothesis testing.