ABSTRACT
When a high-energy physics experiment enters the phase of data collection and analysis, the daily tasks of its postgraduate students are often centred not around the particle physics theories one is trying to test but rather on statistical methods. These methods are the tools needed to compare data with theory and quantify the extent to which one stands in agreement with the other. Of course one must understand the physical basis of the models being tested and so the theoretical emphasis in postgraduate education is no doubt well founded. But with the increasing cost of HEP experiments it has become important to exploit as much of the information as possible in the hard-won data, and to quantify as accurately as possible the inferences one draws when confronting the data with model predictions.
