FWR2103 Applied statistics

The aim of this course is to equip students with in-depth knowledge and critical analytical skills to understand, design, conduct and critically appraise research in natural resources and environment. This course complements the foundation course in statistics. This course introduces the student to methods of empirical inquiry in the social sciences. The course is meant to aid students test hypotheses, empirically fit models, produce predictions, or estimate policy impacts. The introduction of concepts via cases in decision-making related to operations and strategies is preferred whenever appropriate.

Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students will be:

• Able to write a quantitative research proposal and a research report,
• Able to classify the key approaches in quantitative research in the field of natural resources and environment, and other related courses,
• Equipped with the different types of quantitative research methodology and analysis,
• Able to conduct appropriate statistical tests for quantitative environmental data using statistical packages such as SPSS or STATA,
• Equipped with skills for forecasting about natural resources using statistical methods and 
• Equipped with skills for writing a quantitative research proposals and reports.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this course, the student should demonstrate capacity to:

• use the key approaches in quantitative research for conducting field studies about natural resources and environment,
• apply the quantitative research methods and analyses for problem solving in natural resources management,
• apply different types of statistical methods and analyze quantitative data for decision making in natural resources management,
• use skills learnt in collecting appropriate quantitative environmental data for statistical testing using statistical softwares such as SPSS or STATA,
• make forecasts and predictions about sustainability of use of natural resources using statistical methods and  apply skills acquired in writing quantitative research proposal to conduct research and compile a research report about natural resources.