Chapter 6: Statistics Analysis for Herbal Data

Abstract

In the present data-driven era, having a good grasp on how to organize, analyse and extract the real message from the data insight is the solution to unveil meaningful information. These information have much to contribute to our cognitive process, in particular, it helps researchers to generalize or derive new knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. Research investigations made up of research establishment, testing and validation, evaluation, etc. are undoubtedly creating colossal volume of data in the literature, and of course, herbal medicine research focusing on mulberry makes no exception. While statistics are somewhat an abstractive idea to understand yet abhorrent to many (Petrie & Watson, 2006), it is definitely an indispensable tool for all existing disciplines so that a better decision can be made based upon the outcome of the statistical analysis. This chapter is written to give an introductory text concerning the statistical concepts, statistical methods/ techniques, and interpretation of results which are useful in the management of herbal data. These fundamental texts on statistics help to form a glimpse of understanding among readers with either zero knowledge or minimal knowledge of statistics. Upon completion of reading this chapter, the readers should be able to carry out basic statistical methods on data, and at the same time, interpret the statistical outputs in a more meaningful manner.