Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies held a workshop, entitled “Descriptive Statistics for Behavioral Sciences,” on Saturday August 11, 2018 in order to strengthen the research capacity of educational and research-related institutions. The workshop was dedicated to graduate students, young academics, and researchers at governmental institutions. Fourteen participants who are either Masters’ or PhD students in areas of political science, sociology, psychology, and public administration joined the workshop. A resident researcher at Bayan Center Mr. Hashim Al-Rikabi presented the topic and prepared handouts as well as problem sets that cover statistical concepts and their utilization in behavioral sciences.
The workshop was structured into three sections: the first section concentrated on the characteristics of statistics and its relevance to behavioral sciences; the second section covers several important statistical concepts, such as sample, margin of error, variables, scales of measurements, statistical approaches, and statistical methods; the last section was devoted to descriptive statistics, including indicators of central tendency and dispersion.
The workshop was launched with an overview of several basic mathematical concepts that are related to statistics, such as real numbers, order of operations, and probability in order to enable participants to comprehend statistical concepts and obtain correct answers to problem sets.
Participants thanked Bayan Center for offering such rewarding opportunity and expressed their willingness to attend future methodology workshops, given its crucial role in disseminate the most updated tools into Iraq research community.
