Summarizing and analyzing data

This site contains material on summarizing and analyzing quantitative data. One way to describe a quantitative research process is as follows.

Planning stage

First of all you need to know what you want to know. So, you need clearly stated research questions.

Then you have to figure out, what kind of data is needed to answer the research questions. Furthermore you have to find a feasible way to collect such data. All this can be called a research design. The research design provides a plan or a framework for data collection and analysis. You refine your research design by planning details related to measurement and sampling.

'Well planned is half done' means that planning should take a considerable amount of time in the total work. Planning might not actually take half of the time, in fact, it might take a lot more than half.

The following textbooks are valuable resources when planning your research:

Kananen J. 2011. Rafting Through the Thesis Process. 2011. JAMK University of Applied Sciences.
Saunders M, Lewis, P, Thornhill, A. 2009. Research Methods for Business Students. Fifth edition. Prentice Hall.
Ghauri, P, Grönhaug, K. 2005. Research Methods in Business Studies. A Practical Guide. Third edition. Prentice Hall.
Buckingham, A, Saunders, P. 2004. The Survey Methods Workbook. Polity Press.

Before entering the implementation stage, think once more whether your research design is able to give answers to your research questions and is it possible to accomplish the planned procedures. It is crucial to go as far as thinking about data analysis:

What are the variables you are going to generate from the data you are going to collect?
What kind of tables, descriptive statistics and charts are you going to create to summarize variables?
What kind of methods are you going to use to analyze relationships between variables?
Do you need statistical inference (error margins, hypothesis testing)?

Implementation stage

After collecting the data according to your plan you need to get it to an analysis software like SPSS or Excel.

If you have collected data by yourself then you have to enter it to SPSS or Excel.
If you use data from somewhere else then you need to transform it to an appropriate format.
If you have used an online survey tool (like Webropol or Digium) then you can get data in an Excel format.

To display, summarize and analyze your data you may use SPSS or Excel. Despite analysis tools you use you must master the basics of statistics.

Print and read Summarizing and analyzing data pdf-document containing the basics of statistics (including sampling methods, descriptive statistics, statistical inference and Excel 2007/2010 instructions).

If you find Excel functions and pivot tables cumbersome then you may like my add-in StatAid. It works inside Excel and makes statistical analyses extremely easy.

If you are going to use SPSS you also need the following:

Print and read SPSS Tutorial

Basic steps when using SPSS are:

Enter data directly to SPSS or open an Excel file.
Use the Analyze menu to select appropriate methods and variables.
Copy/Paste or export your output to a Word document for further use in the final report. You can edit and format the output in Word.
Copy/Paste or export your output to an Excel document if you are going to create graphics by using Excel. You can create graphics in SPSS but if you are familiar with Excel then you may prefer Excel.

In addition to the steps above you may need some preparation of data (like recoding/grouping, selecting subgroups, computing new variables). In SPSS the data preparation tools are found in the Data and Transform menus.

The following sites may be useful for you:

If you have any questions or comments about this site, send an e-mail: aki.taanila(at)haaga-helia.fi