VCCC Biostatistics Workshop November

Are you a health professional who wants to better understand how to interpret the reporting of statistical results?

The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre will host a FREE one-day workshop on Friday 30 November 2018 at the VCCC building in Parkville, to explore beyond the simple how-to of statistical testing to delve into the underlying concepts and rationales for hypothesis testing.

Designed for the non-statistician, it will explore ideas such as:

• How to interpret P-values and the importance of confidence intervals and effect sizes
• What does an insignificant P-value mean and should this be explored further and
• Misuse and misinterpretation of P-values, including P-hacking and selective reporting

Beyond P

Most researchers use P-values for data analysis and apply an alpha of 0.05 as the cut-off for significance. If the P-value is less than 0.05, we reject the null hypothesis there is no difference between the means and conclude a significant difference does exist. Or in simple terms…below 0.05, significant; over 0.05, not significant!  But what does ‘significant’ actually mean and what does(n’t) a P-value tell us about the differences that might exist between data?  What is the difference between statistical significance and clinical significance and how do you make decisions about the real world relevance of either?

Facilitators

The day will be facilitated by Dr Anita Horvath and Dr Justin Bilszta from the Master of Clinical Research program, Department of Medical Education, Melbourne Medical School, the University of Melbourne.

Who should attend?

Healthcare professionals - clinicians, nurses and allied health personnel who read scientific papers that use and report statistical analysis and who want to better understand what the results reported actually mean.

Limited places available

Morning tea and lunch will be provided

*Please note this session is open to VCCC partner organisation staff only