STATISTICAL DATA

ANALYSIS
Dr. Razuan Karim
Associate Professor
Dept. of Computer Science
Faculty of Science and
Technology

Room No: DN0220, D

Building
Email: rkarim@aiub.edu
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ANALYSIS
Statistical Analysis means -
Investigating trends

Patterns, and relationships using quantitative data.

It is an important research tool used by scientists,

governments, businesses, and other organizations.
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 To draw valid conclusions, statistical analysis
requires careful planning from the very start of the
research process.

 You need to specify your hypotheses and make

decisions about your research design, sample
size, and sampling procedure.
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 After collecting data from your sample, you can
organize and summarize the data using
descriptive statistics.
 Then, you can use inferential statistics to formally
test hypotheses and make estimates about the
population.
 Finally, you can interpret and generalize your
findings.
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 This article is a practical introduction to statistical
analysis for students and researchers.
 We’ll walk you through the steps using two
research examples.
 The first investigates a potential cause-and-effect
relationship
 While the second investigates a potential
correlation between variables.
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Example-1: Causal research question:
 Can meditation improve exam performance in
teenagers?

Example-2: Correlational research question:

 Is there a relationship between parental income and
college grade point average (GPA)?
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Table of contents:
Step 1: Write your hypotheses and plan your research
design
Step 2: Collect data from a sample
Step 3: Summarize your data with descriptive statistics
Step 4: Test hypotheses or make estimates with inferential
statistics
Step 5: Interpret your results
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ANALYSIS
Step 1: Write your hypotheses and plan your
research design
 To collect valid data for statistical analysis, you first need
to specify your hypotheses and plan out your research
design.
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ANALYSIS
Writing statistical hypotheses
 The goal of research is often to investigate a
relationship between variables within a population.
You start with a prediction, and use statistical
analysis to test that prediction.
 A statistical hypothesis is a formal way of writing a
prediction about a population. Every research
prediction is rephrased into null and alternative
hypotheses that can be tested using sample data.
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 While the null hypothesis always predicts no effect
or no relationship between variables, the alternative
hypothesis states your research prediction of an
effect or relationship.
Example: Statistical hypotheses to test an effect
 Null hypothesis: A 5-minute meditation exercise
will have no effect on math test scores in teenagers.
 Alternative hypothesis: A 5-minute meditation
exercise will improve math test scores in teenagers.
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Example: Statistical hypotheses to test a correlation

 Null hypothesis: Parental income and GPA have no

relationship with each other in college students.

 Alternative hypothesis: Parental income and GPA are

positively correlated in college students.
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Planning your research design
 A research design is your overall strategy for data collection and
analysis.
 It determines the statistical tests you can use to test your
hypothesis later on.
 First, decide whether your research will use a descriptive,
correlational, or experimental design.
 Experiments directly influence variables, whereas descriptive and
correlational studies only measure variables.
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 In an experimental design, you can assess a cause-and-effect
relationship (e.g., the effect of meditation on test scores) using
statistical tests of comparison or regression.
 In a correlational design, you can explore relationships between
variables (e.g., parental income and GPA) without any assumption
of causality using correlation coefficients and significance tests.
 In a descriptive design, you can study the characteristics of a
population or phenomenon (e.g., the prevalence of anxiety in U.S.
college students) using statistical tests to draw inferences from
sample data.
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 Your research design also concerns whether you’ll
compare participants at the group level or individual
level, or both.
 In a between-subjects design, you compare the group-
level outcomes of participants who have been exposed
to different treatments (e.g., those who performed a
meditation exercise vs those who didn’t).
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 In a within-subjects design, you compare repeated
measures from participants who have participated in all
treatments of a study (e.g., scores from before and after
performing a meditation exercise).
 In a mixed (factorial) design, one variable is altered
between subjects and another is altered within subjects
(e.g., pretest and posttest scores from participants who
either did or didn’t do a meditation exercise).
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Experimental:
Example: Experimental research design
 You design a within-subjects experiment to study
whether a 5-minute meditation exercise can
improve math test scores. Your study takes
repeated measures from one group of
participants.
 First, you’ll take baseline test scores from
participants. Then, your participants will undergo
a 5-minute meditation exercise. Finally, you’ll
record participants’ scores from a second math
test.
 In this experiment, the independent variable is
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Correlational:ANALYSIS
Example: Correlational research design
 In a correlational study, you test whether there is
a relationship between parental income and GPA
in graduating college students. To collect your
data, you will ask participants to fill in a survey
and self-report their parents’ incomes and their
own GPA.

 There are no dependent or independent variables

in this study, because you only want to measure
variables without influencing them in any way.
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Measuring variables
 When planning a research design, you should
operationalize your variables and decide exactly
how you will measure them.
 For statistical analysis, it’s important to consider
the level of measurement of your variables,
which tells you what kind of data they contain:
 Categorical data represents groupings. These
may be nominal (e.g., gender) or ordinal (e.g.
level of language ability).
 Quantitative data represents amounts. These
may be on an interval scale (e.g. test score) or a
ratio scale (e.g. age).
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 Many variables can be measured at
different levels of precision. For example,
age data can be quantitative (8 years old)
or categorical (young). If a variable is
coded numerically (e.g., level of agreement
from 1–5), it doesn’t automatically mean
that it’s quantitative instead of categorical.
 Identifying the measurement level is
important for choosing appropriate
statistics and hypothesis tests. For
example, you can calculate a mean score
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 ANALYSIS
In a research study, along with measures of your
variables of interest, you’ll often collect data on
relevant participant characteristics.
Experimental:
Example: Variables (experiment)
 You can perform many calculations with quantitative age
or test score data, whereas categorical variables can be
used to decide groupings for comparison tests.
Variable Type of data
Age Quantitative (ratio)
Gender Categorical (nominal)
Race or ethnicity Categorical (nominal)
Baseline test scores Quantitative (interval)
Final test scores Quantitative (interval)
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Correlational:
Example: Variables (correlational study)
 The types of variables in a correlational study
determine the test you’ll use for a correlation
coefficient. A parametric correlation test can be
used for quantitative data, while a non-
parametric correlation test should be used if one
of the variables is ordinal.
Variable Type of data

Parental income Quantitative (ratio)

GPA Quantitative (interval)

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Step 2: Collect data from a sample
 In most cases, it’s too difficult or expensive
to collect data from every member of the
population you’re interested in studying.
Instead, you’ll collect data from a sample.
 Statistical analysis allows you to apply your
findings beyond your own sample as long
as you use appropriate
sampling procedures. You should aim for a
sample that is representative of the
population.
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Sampling for statistical analysis
There are two main approaches to selecting a
sample.
•Probability sampling: every member of
the population has a chance of being
selected for the study through random
selection.
•Non-probability sampling: some
members of the population are more likely
than others to be selected for the study
because of criteria such as convenience or