Basics of Biostatistics

Period (from – till): 16 November 2026 – 29 January 2027 (BMS_P2_A). There are no fixed times for the online weblectures. There are weakly deadlines for online course activities.

Schedule: 
Introduction and discussion statistical theory: week 47-51, week 1-2 (fully online; weekly deadlines)
Christmas holiday: week 52 - 53
Case study (group assignment): week 2-3 (online)
Exam (individual): week 4 (location UMC Utrecht)
Re-exam (individual): week 8 (location UMC Utrecht)
 
Faculty
Marga Korporaal, GNK (coordinator and online instructor)
Cas Kruitwagen, GNK (web lecturers)
Rebecca Stellato, GNK (web lecturers)

Course description
This nine week course (4.5 ECTS, 14 hours per week) provides an introduction to statistical methodology. A number of statistical techniques are covered that are relevant for practical biomedical data analysis.

This course covers the concepts of statistical estimation (point and interval estimation) and testing. It focuses on methods developed for categorical data, in particular binary data, and quantitative data, in particular normally distributed data. The course covers, simple linear regression, correlation, one way analysis of variance, analysis of contingency tables and non-parametric statistics. Furthermore, it introduces (multiple) linear regression and (multiple) logistic regression.

The theory will be presented during web lectures and you will have the opportunity to practice your skills through exercises, discussions, quizzes, assignments and case studies of realistic and real data.

Literature/study material used:
NA

Examination
The examination consists of two parts, namely:

1. a case study (25% of final grade)
2. a final exam (75% of final grade)

The exam consists of a combination of open and closed (multiple-choice or fill-in) questions.

The grade for the final test and the case study must both be at least 5 and the final grade at least a 5.5 to pass for the course. Furthermore, active participation in the online environment is mandatory.

Registration
You can register for this course via Osiris Student. More information about the registration procedure can be found here on the Students' site.
A maximum of 60 students can be enrolled in the course.

Mandatory for students in own Master’s programme:
N.A.
 
Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programme:
Yes.
Msc Epidemiology students are excluded from participation in this course due to overlap with BMB404010 - Introduction to Statistics and BMB403314 - Classical Methods in Data Analysis.

Prerequisite knowledge:
Although active statistical knowledge is not a prerequisite, we expect some basic knowledge of statistics and mathematics acquired through, for example, courses in biostatistics in the bachelor program or self-study.

It is assumed that you

• are familiar with the concepts of a “population” versus a “sample”
• can interpret data presented in the form of a histogram, boxplot, frequency table, scatterplot or contingency table
• can calculate and interpret from a sequence of numbers: the mean, median, variance, standard deviation, range, interquartile range, standard error of the mean
• are familiar with the concepts probability and probability distributions (in particular the standard normal distribution).