To advance the analytical skills of academics and Postgraduate students, the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) has organised a two-week international training workshop on Statistics and Data Analysis, facilitated by a renowned statistician, Professor Sagary Nokoe, from the Catholic University of East Africa.
The Training Workshop, with the theme, Enhancing the Capacity of Staff in Effective Data Analysis and Interpretation, was attended by researchers, academic staff and postgraduate students drawn from various departments of Bayero University and other partner institutions. It was aimed at building their capacity for the high quality analysis of research data and interpretation techniques, drawing examples and experiences from agricultural development projects implemented by diverse institutions, such as the sub-regional organisations in Africa like CORAF/WECARD, as well as international agricultural research centres of the CGIAR system, including IITA, ILRI and ICIPE and FARA.
The CDA Workshop, according to Prof Nokoe, would enhance the capacity of researchers, staff, supervisors, partners and postgraduate students to extract more relevant data and analyse them efficiently in their respective activities.
For agricultural activities, Prof Nokoe was optimistic that the skills gained from the workshop would facilitate the collection of high quality scientific data, on one hand, and enable the application of appropriate statistical analytical methods that would make the research findings publishable in reputable indexed international journals, on the other. Thus, the technical content of the training workshop focused on sampling methodology and the analysis of frequencies and qualitative data analysis generated from series, factorial trials, the analysis of mixtures and quantal response (such as probit and logit analysis for symmetric binary, non-symmetric binary). Others were: the analysis of mixed models, analysis and interpretation of regression, correlation and path coefficient, as well as the practical applications using R software.