It is necessary to understand both the design of a trial and some of the ideas behind the design before attempting to analyse the data. This session provides a brief review of these design ideas. The key element in the design of a trial is the ‘Statement of Trial Objectives’. We will use this session to show that the objectives of the trial determine the treatments to be applied in the experiment as well as the measurements that are to be taken. Satisfying these objectives will also require an appropriate layout of the plots (or other units) in the experiment. In the remaining sessions we will often breakdown a trial into its component parts of treatments layout and measurements. Later in Session 2 we will use these overall objectives of the trial to construct the objectives of the analysis. The idea that the analysis of the data must be able to satisfy the objectives of the trial is the dominant theme of this whole course.
Publication year
2002
Authors
Stern, R.D.; Allan, E.F.; Coe, R.D.
Keywords
Agroforestry, Data analysis, Experimental design, Statistical analysis, Training
