Fred Dombrose, a force for use of statistical design of experiment in biomedical research, alerted me to an enlightening article on statistics asking “What is the question?” in the March 20 issue of Science magazine. It lays out these 6 types of data analyses laid out by biostatistician Jeffrey Leak:
- Descriptive
- Exploratory
- Inferential
- Predictive
- Causal
- Mechanistic
For the distinguishing details going up this ladder see this Data Scientist Insight blog. However, the easiest way to determine where your study ranks is via the flowchart provided in the Science publication. There you also see four common mistakes that stem from trying to get too much information from too little data.
“Poor design of experiments is one of, if not the most, common reason for an experiment to fail.”
– Jeff Leek, “Great scientist – statistics = lots of failed experiments”, simplystats blog of 4/12/13