Statistics in Research
2023-07-28
Statistics in Research
Introduction
Today, more than ever, statistics is part of our lives. Statistics can be used to describe the interactions of fundamental particles or to measure biodiversity in our oceans. It can be used to predict election outcomes or predict prices of assets in finance. Whatever the quantitative research questions is the answers will ultimately come from statistics.
This e-book is intended to provide an introduction to statistics and describe the quantitative methods used in research.
The book has been written for a broad audience and most of the mathematical techniques used are described in plain English (as far as possible). Worked examples are provided to demonstrate the process of calculating various statistics. There is no need to be mathematically inclined to understand and use descriptive statistics in day-to-day research, especially with tools such as Excel and SPSS which simplify many of the calculations involved in statistics. Some of the formula used in Excel calculations are provided throughout and the appendices include a list of useful excel formula. In later chapters, detailing inferential statistics, mathematical descriptions are provided and a glossary of mathematical notation is included in the appendices.
Contents
- Introduction
- Sampling
- Measures of Uncertainty
- Data Types and Levels of Measurement
- Levels of Measurement Quiz
- Describing Data
- Descriptive Statistics Quiz
- Comparing Data
- Inferential Statistics
- Correlation
- Chi Square Tests
- Data Visualisation
- Appendices
Chapter 1 details the two main branches of statistics.
Chapter 2 details sampling methodologies and may be useful to readers interested in data collection or conducting surveys.
Chapter 3 details measures of uncertainty and how they are used to describe the differences between sample statistics and population parameters through sampling error.
Chapters 4 and 5 describe the various data types and levels of measurement and how these classifications inform the use of different statistics.
Chapters 6 and 7 outline the fundamentals of descriptive statistics.
Chapter 8 details the various methods of comparing different data.
Chapters 4 to 8 will be most useful to those interested in summarising data sets as they outline the most commonly used descriptive statistics with worked examples.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 provide an introduction to inferential statistics which may be of use to readers interested in hypothesis testing and fitting data.
Chapter 12 provides a brief introduction to data visualisation, the tools used and guidance on when and how to use visuals.
Throughout this text, blue boxes will be used to provide depth, context or additional information on mathematical notation for interested readers.
Information
Blue boxes like this one will be used to provide additional information, context or mathematical details that go beyond the scope of an introduction to statistics. The information contained in these boxes is not necessary to have a basic understanding of statistics.
Red boxes will be used throughout to summarise important information.
Summary
These are intended to provide a recap of all the most important information provided in a chapter needed to gain a basic understanding of statistics.