Statistics and MBA

Question: Discuss the use of statistics and the concepts required in the job and educational requirements for this job. Answer: A biostatistician was interviewed to get an idea about the use of statistics in his field. He had joined a company as a biostatistician recently. He wished to survive through this job before pursuing doctorate in biostatistics. The following interview questions were asked to him and his responses were as follows: Use of statistics and the concepts required in the job Biostatistics is the subject where biological events and factors are analysed statistically. Various statistical methods are also used to design different kinds of biological experiments in medicine, agriculture, pharmacy, etc. Descriptive statistical methods like mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and variance, coefficient of variation, skewness and kurtosis are used to analyse the biological data initially and find out the basic qualities of the data. Statistical charts are also used to know the measures of dispersion and central tendency of the data. Designing of models with the biological data are an important part of biostatistics (Forthofer Lee, 2014). Designing models helps to know the form of the data and the influence of factors on each other. ANOVA, ANCOVA, etc. models are used to design the data and analyse them. Fitting of the model is an important part of biostatistics. The fitted model would help to predict the future values of the biological events. Example of the use of statistics and its usefulness in improving a practice or service. An experiment was conducted to know how the occurrence of certain disease does is influenced by the lifestyle, blood group and previous history of the disease. A survey was conducted to know about the patients having the specific disease or those who had the disease. The data was collected from various hospital records. Descriptive analysis was initially done on this data to know about the basic qualities of the data (Kramer 2012). Hypothesis was set accordingly to justify the desired problem. Hypothesis testing and statistical tests like f-test, t-test and ANOVA would be done accordingly and conclusions would be drawn to identify the influencing factors. This would help to develop the medicines and treat the patients in future. Educational requirements for this job (statistical and other requirements) Basic knowledge about statistics is required to get a job of biostatistician. Knowing the basics of probability and statistics and the methods of testing and inference would help to land in such a job. Knowing the biology well is a very important criterion to be a biostatistician. One should have a postgraduate degree in biology and he should have special paper as statistics and probability in his post graduation to be a biostatistician (Motulsky, 2013). Recommendation to study statistics by today's college students It is recommended to study statistics by the college student in todays world. This is because statistics is used widely in every field in modern days world. It helps to predict the future by analysing the past data. This would help to predict a better future and eradicate the past issues (Wassertheil-Smoller, 2013). From the interview, a vast knowledge on the methods of application of statistics in biology could be known. The most interesting and surprising part of the interview was that statistics was widely used in biology. References Forthofer, R. N., Lee, E. S. (2014).Biostatistics: A Guide to Design, Analysis and Discovery. Elsevier. Kramer, M. S. (2012).Clinical epidemiology and biostatistics: a primer for clinical investigators and decision-makers. Springer Science Business Media. Motulsky, H. (2013).Intuitive biostatistics: a nonmathematical guide to statistical thinking. Oxford University Press, USA. Wassertheil-Smoller, S. (2013).Biostatistics and epidemiology: a primer for health professionals. Springer Science Business Media.