How to Analyze Data

✍ Scribed by Catrin Radcliffe

• Publisher: Red Globe Press
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 172
• Series: Pocket Study Skills
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This accessible guide is an ideal starter for students who are puzzled by statistics and quantitative data analysis. Taking students step-by-step through the statistical process, it introduces the steps involved in successfully describing, analyzing and interpreting data and explains the logic which underpins these processes. Bite-sized chapters provide practical guidance for each stage of the process, from defining the research question and designing questionnaires through to using the appropriate statistical tests and analyses for the task and reporting and interpreting statistics.

Clear and concise, this will be a go-to resource for undergraduates of all disciplines who need to get to grips with basic statistics on their course.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
PART 1 GETTING STARTED
1 What does your assignment ask you to do?
2 How will you do it?
Have you been asked to analyze a dataset?
Are you responsible for collecting and analyzing the data?
3 Defining your research question
4 Tips for designing your questionnaire
What do you need your questionnaire to do?
How will you carry out this questionnaire?
Designing your questionnaire
Wording your questionnaire
Common problems: spot the difference?
5 How to enter your data into a spreadsheet
Organizing and entering your data
Tips for entering data
Saving data
PART 2 UNDERSTANDING AND DESCRIBING YOUR DATA
6 What type of data do you have?
7 Descriptive statistics
Population and samples
Calculating averages
For nominal data, report the mode.
Calculating measures of spread
Using Excel functions
8 What plot should you use?
To plot or not to plot?
What type of plot?
Plotting categorical data
Plotting scale data: distributions or relationships
PART III HOW DO STATISTICAL TESTS WORK
9 What is a statistical hypothesis?
10 Using probability distributions in statistical tests
What is probability?
What are degrees of freedom?
What about chance?
Two-tailed test
One-tailed test: What’s different?
11 Statistical errors and their interpretation
Type I error
Type II error
Type III error
Interpreting statistical results
PART 4 WHAT STATISTICAL TEST DO YOU NEED?
12 The statistical signpost
13 Statistical flowcharts
Categorical tests
Parametric tests
Nonparametric tests
14 Case studies
Case study 1: Describing data and looking for an association between variables
Case study 2: Looking for a difference between variables
Case study 3: Looking for a relationship between variables
PART 5 THE STATISTICAL PROCESS
15 You the researcher
What is your research question?
Your data
Describing your data
Reporting your results
What to include?
p-values
Use your reading
And finally …
16 You the interpreter
Interpreting published results: the outline
You’ve reached the finish line!
Symbols explained
References
Useful resources
Index