EDM 320 - Statistical Analysis in Emergency and Disaster Management

The appropriate use and interpretation of data measurement and statistical methods are vitally important in various professions related to emergency and disaster response, as evidenced by the advancement of data-driven practices. See the use of probability statistics in search and rescue, for example. This course is structured to achieve two main objectives. The first is to illuminate the important concepts in descriptive as well as inferential statistics: measures of central tendency and dispersion, normal distributions, probability theory, hypothesis testing, statistical significance, measures of association, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The second objective is to explain how to manage and interpret data using SPSS, a statistical software package commonly used in the social sciences. Students will develop an understanding of how various test statistics are calculated and interpreted, and how to apply these statistics in real world events.

Credits: 3