Biostatistics: Interpreting Results of Scientific Articles

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In 2017, Bradbury et al. published an article in Animal Production Science, number 57, pages 2016 – 2026, where they analyzed the effects of a highly soluble calcium source supplemented with phytase in chicken diets and studied the digestibility of various nutrients, ash content, mobility of animals and weakness of the legs. The selection of this study for this article is not to compare it with other experiments, but to simply use it as a model on how to analyze and interpret biostatistics in such a publication:

• What kind of data should a publication provide us with?
• What do the different results obtained in the studies tell us?
• How should we interpret them?

A scientific article should, in addition to informing us of a series of findings made by the authors, be a guide that allows other researchers, following the same (or similar) methods and materials reach (or not) similar conclusions. than the authors thereof.

What should we look for when reading an article?

Bradbury et al. in table 3 of their article, reported the effect of phytase levels between days 1 to 14, using a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design (two sources of calcium, two levels of calcium and two levels of phytase, see table 1).

The mean is a descriptive statistical parameter of a population.

From the 1120 chickens used in this experiment, we collect the samples, and estimate the value of the statistical parameter of interest, in this case the mean.