Day 9: Creating a Statistical Analysis Plan (SAP)

What is a statistical analysis plan — and why do we need one? Think of building a house. You wouldn’t tell the builder “Start here” and then keep changing your mind mid-construction. Without a blueprint, inspectors can—and should—flag or even tear down what’s been built. An analysis plan is your blueprint for research: it’s the objective standard you use to give and receive feedback. A good analysis plan preserves fidelity to what you actually set out to test. Without it, it’s all too easy to “fish” in the data—try multiple approaches until you find a publishable result. That’s how biased findings are born. A pre-specified statistical analysis plan prevents fishing and keeps your work honest. On the Chisquares platform, you can build that plan directly in the system. The platform helps you: • design analysis tables, • assess confounding and collinearity, and • address issues long before results are produced. Watch the short video to see how to create a clear, defensible analysis plan on Chisquares — and stop letting your analysis be shaped by the results. 🎯📐