Experimental Design

Day 1: Introduction to experimental design theory (difference between experiment and observation, confounding, importance of randomisation, types of experimental designs, implications for data analysis); practical (randomization with the software R, simple power calculations)Day 2: Introduction to experimental design theory (power); practical (simple power calculations); exercise: students design an experiment based on a given research question. The proposed designs are discussed in class.Day 3: Applications - Each participant is asked to send a description of one planned experiment (or one running experiment if none is planned) to steffi.vonfelten@oikostat.ch until October 4th, 2015 (e.g., drawing of the spatial layout and text description, what measurements are taken and when?).Course participants will present the design of their own experiments. Each experimental design will be discussed in class and will also receive some feedback by the course teacher.Prerequisite for participation: basic knowledge of statistics (linear models and linear mixed-effects models in particular) and the software package R would be an advantage but is not absolutely required.