Finally, I have an intuitive understanding of clinical research!

I completed 2 online courses in clinical research and statistics before this course but I did not get much benefits. But “Understanding Clinical Research” is the best. It is an excellent course for beginners who are interested in clinical research and medical statistics but do not know where to start from. Finally, I have the knowledge and trust to start my own research. This course introduced my to the different study types, types of data, the concept of many complicated statistical terms as P value, confidence interval and a lot of statistical methods and tests. On a scale from 1 to 5 when 5 is strongly agree, I would choose 5 to highly recommend this course for my friends. This scale is an ordinal categorical data type by the way :)

Thank you for this amazing course.

A great introduction to understanding research and a great platform to springboard keen clinicians into performing their own research. Will take what I've learnt and apply it to my own research!

Great course!! it is gonna provide you a good foundation in clinical studies if you want to start your career in clinical research! Clear explanation and comprehensive case study! highly recommended!

I'm very new at this theme, this course has being the perfect beginning. If you don't have a mathematical background and you don't understand when the funny S appear, this is the course for you!

This is an outstanding course! I never thought that I'll be able to understand those complicated statistical issues (even if it's only a basic level). It takes a great talent and level of understanding to transfer knowledge in such an easy and comprehensive way. After the course completion I was surprised during the final exam - it was unusual to see how much I've learned, remembered and understood! If my biostatistic classes would look similar to this course, my master thesis writing would be so much easier. Thank you so much Juan for the opportunity to gain the confidence and understanding of basic statistical issues, now I'm not intimidated by "Materials and Methods" section anymore.

Klopper MD is a great teacher. There are other courses from another top universities about this topic, but I think this is my favourite. This the shortest in duration and most comprehensive among all.

I am a Masters student in Molecular Biology. Though this course uses examples from Clinical Research ( and probably best that it did!), I was able to get a what-does-a statistical-term-actually-mean understanding of the myriad tests that I find in the literature. That makes a whole lot of difference in how I view the Data Analysis section of a paper from now on! I have learnt to understand the pros and cons of each test and what exactly to look for.The course has achieved what it intended to achieve. Not to teach the maths of a stat test but to explore the understanding behind why a particular test was used as opposed to another test!

I found this course to be excellent. The material is high-yield in every regard, giving the right balance of big-picture understanding coupled with enough detail to flesh out the experience and the understanding. The professor was very direct and clear in his explanations; I consider the course to be extremely well taught. There were a few areas where the explanation could have been slightly more illustrative or detailed, but nobody is perfect. Overall this is a very valuable course and a worthwhile use of time for any medical practitioner who has to interact in any way with the world of research.

Excellent course!! Vey well explained statistics with real examples, so now while reading or writing a scientific paper one can really understand why this and not that statistical method was used.

I managed to understand very important concepts of statistics used in the writing of articles, my understanding in the reading of scientific texts has improved a lot

I recently completed the course and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand statistical analysis in medical research better. The course starts by providing an intuitive understanding of study types and data collection methods used in clinical research. It then delves into the differences in data types and the various statistical tests used to make sense of the data, such as t-tests, Mann-Whitney-U test, Wilcoxon test, Fisher's exact test, and the chi-squared test. The course also covers the concept of a p-value and the Central Limit Theorem, as well as hypotheses, confidence intervals, and the assumptions of parametric tests. The final week focuses on the accuracy of results in detecting the presence or absence of disease, including sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. The course is well-structured, easy to follow, and provides practical examples to reinforce the concepts learned. I feel much more confident in my ability to interpret and understand published research articles, and I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in clinical research.

As the great majority of reviews say, this is a very, very good course. I learned a great deal over the six week format for the purpose identified: to develop a better feel for the data sections of medical/clinical research papers, for those who are not researchers themselves. There are plenty of videos, all short enough. The quizzes and tests mostly reinforce the learning well, but occasionally they are too hard or raise topics and terms not yet given in the lecture. The two self-assignments--each reading a real paper and identifying its research methods and statistical analysis--was very helpful to me. I am not sure that most students take this part seriously enough (from what I saw when I peer-reviewed), but you get out of it what you put into it. My only wish in terms of content is to have more explanation of p-value; it could really use a second week of attention. Still, there is so much to learn about this topic, that this course gives you a great foundation to go find some other online videos and articles to continue your learning. Great job, Dr. Klopper!

Great course, really grabs the core of research without bothering the student with statistical equations.

I highly recommend the course for all healthcare professions regardless whether they are interested or not in clinical research, because we are now at an era of publications, and everyone of us will be confronted by a piece of research that he will need to understand and at least be able to assess the quality of what in hand.

I would like also to thank the mentors especially Dr. Juan, for the great effort and the simplified course they had given, it was really motivating to continue to the end.

Wow! This is the most useful and well delivered course I have ever undertaken. It is a 'must take' course, which should be a prerequisite for all clinicians, especially mandatory for all intending lecturers of medical schools and researchers. As a result of this course, I am more confident in supervising residents who take on quantitative research for their dissertation. I can't wait to apply the knowledge I got for my personal research and, training of medical students and residents on quantitative research methodology. Thanks Dr. Klopper! Thanks coursera!

Perfect course four clinicians that want better understand the logic under a clinical study and the use of statistic in standard data analysis. I will suggest this course to all clinical researcher that need a basic but complete understanding of statistics applied to daily clinical problems.It will help you better understand papers (an allow you to read them more critically) and better chose between different approaches, designing a clinical trial or doing statistic for it. This course is explained in a simply way and the supports are very well prepared.

Wonderful course. He is an excellent instructor. Trying to teach statistics without math is a difficult task, akin to teaching physics without math. I believe he found the right balance between the two and it fulfilled my needs.

My goal was to learn about statistical tests and how to use them. The foundational work from weeks 1-4 was useful, but the real meat was in weeks 5 & 6. I personally would have liked just a little algebra during the explanation on the Chi-Square test, as it would explained things a lot better. For this I utilized Khan Academy.

Wonderful and insightful course! A must for beginners who have stepped into clinical/ allied medical research, as the course structure is meticulously prepared to help biologists (who are weary of daunting mathematics behind statistical analysis) easily understand and conceptualize statistical analysis. I personally have better understanding on how to view my data, what tests to perform and how to infer the results. The instructor clearly has instilled in me the confidence and ethical morality to look at data and analyze it.

I very much enjoyed Dr Kloppers course. He manages to teach a wide range of statistical theory within a clinical framework – which is where the value added was as far as I am concerned as I am not a clinician, but I do need to know my way around reports and assessments etc. Further, if the course leaves you wanting more (and it should) look at Dr Klopper’s YouTube page – the content is superb.

This is an excellent course for resident doctors and clinicians who wish to review the basics of statistics in medical research. The examples and case studies given are very helpful in understanding the application of the different statistical tests that were mentioned throughout the course. Thank you very much for the wonderful lectures, Dr Klopper!

One of best teacher i have seen in my entire life. course is well designed and explained. Force me to learn alot especially through finding research papers and finding concepts in them. love you sir.

Understanding Clinical Research: Behind the Statistics é simplesmente notável! Este curso oferece uma perspectiva única sobre o mundo da pesquisa clínica, desvendando os complexos conceitos estatísticos de uma maneira que é não apenas acessível, mas genuinamente intrigante. A abordagem prática e envolvente adotada neste curso não apenas mantém minha atenção, mas também me faz perceber a importância vital da pesquisa clínica. A maneira como os conceitos estatísticos são desmistificados e conectados à realidade prática torna o aprendizado não apenas educativo, mas também emocionante, o curso, com sua combinação de vídeos instrutivos, estudos de caso envolventes e exercícios práticos, proporciona uma experiência de aprendizado holística. A plataforma online do curso também merece elogios. Sua interface intuitiva facilita a navegação e o acesso ao conteúdo, algo essencial para uma geração que valoriza a facilidade de uso em ambientes digitais.

This was a great introductory course to the statistics behind clinical research. Interpreting data in research can be difficult if not familiar with the statistics used and I feel this course lends much understanding in that direction. The best part is that you never feel like you're lost in the world of mathematics as the instructor, Dr Klopper, constantly brings in real world examples from the field of healthcare. The topics are broken down into small, understandable modules with extra reading material if necessary. The assignments, especially the ones involving reading sections of a paper and applying the concepts learnt, are fun to do and interesting! Would definitely recommend the course for any beginner at statistics looking to understand and interpret data better.

A very detailed yet basic and easy to understand discussion and teaching on research methodology and the statistics behind it. The testing materials and methods used to assess the candidates at the end of each week are very engaging and thought provoking. Dr Juan Klopper and his team at the University of Cape Town have done a tremendous job in compiling this fantastic series of videos and text which is a must to go through for any one who is new to medical research, who want's to know how to read a medical journal article, how statistics are done in a research paper and what does all those complex terminologies mean. This course is also useful for those who wish to strengthen their exam skills and are aiming Critical Appraisal Examination. Highly recommended course!

I thought the course was wonderful. Everything was explained clearly and precisely. I really appreciate how the course encouraged us to actively think and analyse (it taught us how to think as opposed to just telling us how to think). The only criticism I have is that I felt the non-parameter tests could have been explained more thoroughly (because it felt a bit rushed compared to the rest of the course). Other than that, I really think the course is excellent and well-constructed. I was taught clinical research in the med school I attended and I genuinely never understood research even half as well as I did after finishing this course. I would recommend it to people entirely new to the subject and even those who weren't taught that well during university.

Very clear and direct to the point explanations on how to design a trial, hypothesis contrast and the use of different statistical tests depending on the variables (numerical parametric and non parametric and for categorical variables) and their interpretation. The course also included several "warnings" for the correct interpretation of the study results (for instance, the importance of publishing the raw data of the trials, to set the study hypothesis and statistics from the very beginning and before data collection and analysis, to interpret the PPV considering the prevalence in the sample before extrapolating the result to the population…)