ABSTRACT
Statistical techniques are tools that all geographers should be able to use. However, over the years they have acquired an ideological significance that gives them quite a different status. For some academic geographers the use or avoidance of statistics has come to be a statement of methodological purity. This leaves students confused. Most dissertation supervisors have had meetings with distressed students who felt that their work would not be given full marks unless they made use of statistics, but could not find a meaningful way of doing so. Most dissertation supervisors can probably also think of examples where a student’s choice of topic and research design seems to have been guided by a wish to avoid statistical testing! As always, the issue is one of appropriateness. The first decision must always be whether or not the use of statistics is necessary. Only if it is does the choice of technique become an issue.
