Course Description and Learning Outcomes:

The new statistical guidance from CL:AIRE “Comparing soil contamination data with a critical concentration” was published in September 2020 and introduces land contamination professionals to a different way of drawing conclusions from soil contamination data. In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of statistical concepts & thinking and how to use the recommended statistical tools to draw conclusions. There will be ample opportunities to take part in stimulating discussions and apply what you learn to real life case studies. In addition, there will be examples to show you how the relevant calculations can be undertaken in Microsoft Excel.

The morning will focus on the statistical concepts and calculations needed to use the recommended statistical tools:

• An overview of the 6 concepts of statistical thinking i.e. likelihood, risk, expectation, variance, distribution and correlation;
• How to produce (in Microsoft Excel) and interpret histograms, dot plots and box plots;
• How to calculate and interpret confidence intervals; starting
• How to draw conclusions from your data.

The afternoon will begin with further discussion of some real life case studies and then go into more depth about the statistical principles that underlie the guidance and how you can use these to take your statistical analysis to the next level:

• What is the Central Limit Theorem and what are its strengths and weaknesses;
• Alternative methods of calculating confidence intervals;
• What are Data Types and how to use them to decide if your sample size is sufficient;
• How to plot and detect spatial correlation in your data;

 Who Should Attend:

The course aims to help all land contamination professionals who need to make decisions based on soil contamination data. This is a must have course for all those who need to be fully conversant with the key statistical tools before undertaking such comparisons with a critical concentration.

• Familiarity with soil contamination data;
• A copy of the CL:AIRE guidance “Comparing soil contamination data to a critical concentration”;
• A laptop with Microsoft Excel installed. A spreadsheet with the data to be analysed during the course will be emailed to you before the course;
• Completion of an online questionnaire before the course. A link to the questionnaire will be emailed to about 2 weeks before the course;

 About the trainer:

Nigel Marriott is an Independent Statistician and fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has been running statistics courses aimed at non-statisticians for over 20 years. Feedback has consistently noted that Nigel has a rare ability to explain what looks like complicated statistics in a simple manner that makes it easy for you to understand and apply what you are learning.

Nigel blogs extensively on topical statistical issues and you can find all his blogs here.