1 – Getting started

What this book is about.
How to use this book.
Homework and projects.
The websites serve the course.
Book conventions.
R code.
Questions for the reader.
Chapter 1 contents.

What this book is about.

The primary theme of this applied statistics book is to foster statistical thinking. By developing statistical thinking approaches, biology students gain a way to understand and approach biology problems using statistical concepts and reasoning. Thus, my task in writing chapters was to focus on a problem-solving approach by using real-world data and examples, introducing and expanding on conceptual understanding, and modeling the process of statistical investigation. Our goal is to help students achieve competence in the foundations of biostatistics. Adopting a statistical thinking philosophy is crucial for professionals across medical and scientific disciplines because it provides the analytical tools needed to draw valid, evidence-based conclusions from complex biological and health data.

How to use this book.

This eBook is intended to accompany and support students at Chaminade University of Honolulu enrolled in BI-311 Biostatistics, a one semester introduction to biostatistics. Like all textbooks, the intent is to provide the reader with a guided and interactive presentation about the subject. However, the text should not be taken as the only voice — there are plenty of good textbooks, many free, to help you learn statistics. You are encouraged to seek additional help with the material.

Homework and projects.

The book is a stand alone product, but the purpose of the book is to provide content for my biostatistics course. Homework and projects designed to build confidence with the material are provided in a separate workbook, also available as a free eBook at https://mikeworkbook.letgen.org/. The companion site, Mike’s Workbook for Biostatistics, provides homework and projects to learn-by-doing biostatistics.

The websites serve the course,

Mike’s Biostatistics Book is hosted at biostatistics.letgen.org. Organization at the site is facilitated by the WordPress wp-gitbook theme by Tom J. Nowell at https://github.com/tomjn/wp-gitbook. Thank you, Tom!

The course, BI-311 Biostatistics, is a CANVAS CMS website is accessible through chaminade.edu. The course website helps me to organize and support the course. BI-311 is web-enhanced course, not a blended or hybrid course; that is, online materials are presented to supplement your work in class and do not replace “face-to-face” time.

Students of BI-311 enrolled in CANVAS will find lecture slides, help with your computer, help with R statistical programming language and R Commander, a basic statistics GUI that works with R, and an extensive glossary covering statistics and data science terminology. You will submit your work to CANVAS website. Online quizzes provide rapid feedback and suggestions for further study.

Material on the website is organized to follow the table of contents from Mike’s Biostatistics book. For a 16-week semester, the course would be divided into three parts

Part 1. Chapter 1 — 7 → Exam 1

Part 2. Chapters 8 – 14 → Exam 2

Part 3. Chapters 15 — 18 → Exam 3

Book conventions.

Chapters are divided into main subject sections. Subheadings within sections indicate that important concepts follow, concepts you will be expected to understand and demonstrate that understanding on BI-311 quizzes and exams.

Figures and tables in each chapter start with Figure 1 and Table 1. If a figure from chapter 3 is referred to in chapter 5, then the reference to that figure will be Figure 3.1, with Figure 1 referring to the first figure in Chapter 5. Additional notes about the book were provided in the Preface.

Equations were written using LaTeX; in some cases, equations are presented as images.

Each section also include questions and additional readings, particularly where there are opinions or interpretations of statistical concepts, references are provided. For example, we spend considerable time discussing what the “p value” means. Additional readings either extend the discussion or provide context to the topic.

Like any new subject, a key to your success will be to learn the language. Terms in the text requiring definitions and your attention are in bold. Take care with definitions in statistics: while the words are recognizable, their meanings are often distinctly different from common usage.

On many pages I include parenthetical notes, which are intended to provide additional information or tangential information while minimizing disruption to the reader’s attention to the main text. Parenthetical notes are enclosed in green box, like this one.

Note 1: Parenthetical notes will be enclosed in green box (eg, this note about statistical terms on this page).

R code.

Throughout the text we will also include relevant R code. R code you type will appear in a sentence as a code block, like help.start(), or as a preformatted shaded text block, like so

help.start()

R code you type will be in blue; any output from R will be displayed as red type.

Note 2: Text formatting according to the blue/red principle is not consistent — a work in progress.

Each section includes worked examples that are presented to illustrate concepts, demonstrate how R can be used, and include interpretations as appropriate.

Questions for the reader.

I have added questions at the end of most book sections to emphasize important concepts or to have you explore more about a subject. Questions range from extensions of concepts introduced in the section to exercises and problems to solve. Questions in the text are generally short answer or require a numerical solution.

New as of Fall 2025. Most chapters include about 10 questions based on the readings, a total of 928 as of December. Quiz questions are multiple choice or True/False; click on a response and get immediate feedback. Questions in the book are intended to provide the student with an outline of topics likely to show up on quizzes and exams. On the other hand, the accompanying workbook, Mike’s Workbook for Biostatistics, provides students with opportunities to conduct more detailed data analysis and to learn about the R language.

Note 3: Like a lot of folks, I’m playing with AI — ChatGPT in particular. Some of the book quiz questions were drafted with AI assistance. None are word-for-word AI, however.