Imperial College London
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Hilary Watt CStat FHEA MSc MA(Oxon) BA

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Senior Teaching Fellow in Statistics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7451h.watt Website

 
 
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Location

 

322Reynolds BuildingCharing Cross Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@inbook{Watt:2023,
author = {Watt, H},
booktitle = {Burwalls teaching medical statistics.},
editor = {Medeiros, Mirra and Farnell},
title = {Teaching Conceptual Understanding of p-Values and of ConfidenceIntervals, Whilst Steering Away from Common Misinterpretations.},
year = {2023}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - CHAP
AB  - Teaching strategies aiming to address:Concern that statistical inference is hard to understand. Distributions of sample statistics underpinning calculation methods arenotoriously challenging concepts. Definitions are based on repeated random samples, not practical study designs. P-values areoften interpreted using language that does not accurately reflect the information they contain.Concern over standards of statistical interpretation in the applied literature. Methods of statistical education and resulting varyingunderstanding of statistical inference contribute to this. Excessive focus on whether p < 0.05 leads to some people erroneouslydeclaring studies with very similar odds ratios as incompatible, merely because only one has p < 0.05.Setting. Master’s in public health statistics course at Imperial College London.Strategy. Refer regularly to calculated results amongst study participants and clarify that p-values and confidence intervals (CIs)reflect imprecision resulting from random choices in selection of participants. Select CI and p-value “definitions” that clearlyreflect their purpose within them. Report the assumption of random sampling from some greater population throughout.Include practical exercises that focus on graphs that further support conceptual understanding.Conclusions. Statistics educators should steer away from common misconceptions by focussing on conceptual understanding ofCIs and of p-values. Research is warranted that assesses the subsequent impact of these methods on student understanding.
AU  - Watt,H
PY  - 2023///
TI  - Teaching Conceptual Understanding of p-Values and of ConfidenceIntervals, Whilst Steering Away from Common Misinterpretations.
T1  - Burwalls teaching medical statistics.
ER  -
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