an hand holding a piece of chalk and witing numbers on a blackboard

Experimental Design and Power Analysis for In Vivo Scientists

The course will enable participants with both theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to design experiments using animals that are robust such that causality can be assigned and have sufficient sensitivity for the effect of interest.

By the end of the course you will be able to:

Know the roles of various possible controls in experimental design; understand the risk of extrapolation; understand the difference between randomising and controlling; understand why we use randomisation and awareness of tools that can help randomise samples or animals; understand why experiments should be blind and gain an awareness of the strategies used to achieve this; understand the role of statistical tests in data analysis and to know the different possible outcomes of a statistical tests; be able to adjust the sample size estimation to account for sample attrition; be aware that there are alternative approaches, such as simulation, to estimate sample size when using non-standard analysis. 

Dr Nikki Osborne, Responsible Research in Practice Ltd 

Dr Benjamin Phillips, Senior Statistician at Astrazeneca 

As the course in interactive, the exact timings depend on the attendees and the direction of the discussions that occur. 

Experimental design theory

  • Theory 
  • Activities – group discussions/id sources variance/experimental unit 

Statistical power

  • Theory 
  • Activity: Calculating statistical power 

Common experimental design formats

  • Theory 
  • Activity: selecting the design

This course will be of interest to bioscience researchers at any stage of their career whose research projects involve the use of animals and/or animal derived material. It is open to personal and project license holders, as well as researchers whose animal use is not regulated under ASPA. It will be particularly useful to new PhD students and postdoctoral researchers about to use animals in their research for the first time. 

The course is held once a year remotely on GoToWebinars. 

Ticket: The course fees is £80. PhD student with a 3Rs project are entitled to attend for free. 

If you are interested in attending this course, contact the 3Rs Programme Manager to discuss this opportunity. Please note that the number of spaces is limited and place are given on a first come first serve basis.