Teaching Descriptive and Inferential Statistics in Library Schools

Abstract

The goals of the paper are: ( 1) to suggest that library and information science already depend heavily on statistical techniques; (2) to present examples of the need for greater knowledge of statistics, especially inferential statistics, among librarians and information scientists; and (3) to argue that library school students can be taught inferential statistics. In support of (1) and (2) a study of the 1,157 articles published in 1975 in 36 library and information science journals showed that about 45 per cent of the articles made some use of statistics and that about 3 per cent of the articles, concentrated in the leading journals, used inferential statistics. Not only does the latter percentage indicate that authors missed opportunities to make more penetrating analyses of many sets of data, but also it is related to mistakes in the conclusions that some authors draw from their descriptively analyzed data. In support of (3), a description is given of the research methods course at the author's institution, in which students learn inferential statistics with computer assistance.

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