As mentioned previously, experimental methods can be a matter of dispute: therecan be as many views of the “correct” way to run an experiment asthere are experimenters. Such disagreements are most obvious in the approachtaken to statistical analysis of data: everyone has their own favourite method,there can be many different valid ways to analyse data, and even statisticiansdo not always agree on the best approach.

This chapter is not intended to be a statistics primer: it simply describes thestatistics tests that I find most useful in analysing data and shows examples oftheir application. It does not discuss any theoretical aspects of these tests orwhy they “work.” Rather, it is a practical guide that will enablean experimenter to make considerable headway with some simple analyses, and tobe able to consult a statistics text for more information with confidence.

In most cases, these tests will be sufficient for answering the type of researchquestions discussed so far. Other analyses may require reference to a goodstatistics book or guidance from a statistics consultant.