No shortcuts when collaborating with Statisticians

A new article, August, 2012, in AMStat news addressed a common misunderstanding to believe that statistical support is merely the "labor of plugging data into a computer and pushing a button". Below is from the original article, explained why their request to “please run the analysis” is really not a 2-3 hour job.

Source: http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2011/08/01/statscienceaug11/

Statistical science is much more than data analysis, and involves the incorporation of statistical methodology at all stages of research, requiring scientific expertise in the field of statistics. Appropriate use of statistical methodology in data analysis means the data should be analyzed in a way that is both scientifically and statistically reasonable.

The statisticians are, themselves, scientists collaborating in research, and are using their statistical expertise in determining and applying the appropriate methodology for rigorously addressing important research questions with excellence. The time invested often requires the following:

• Review of the research for basic understanding of the science
• Review of the data to understand the distributional properties of the variables collected
• Determination of the appropriate methodology to apply in analysis corresponding to the hypothesis and design of the investigation
• Programming of the analysis using appropriate statistical software (specific to the particular data set)
• Review of the analytic results
• Reporting of the results

The time invested for a particular data analysis can take hours, or it can take months. This depends on the research questions, the study design, the properties of data gathered, and the target audience that will need to understand the results.