Illustrating Statistical Procedures: Finding Meaning in Quantitative Data

Abstract

The purpose of this book is to focus on a wide range of concepts and procedures which are available for analysing quantitative research data. These concepts and procedures are collectively considered to constitute the domain of statistics. It is an inescapable fact that in order to either read or conduct good business, behavioural and social science research, you must become acquainted with how such data are analysed. • Quantitative data necessarily require the application of specific statistical formulas, analytical sequences and computations which transform and condense raw numerical data (e.g. people's marks on a survey questionnaire or readings from an instrument) into forms that can be interpreted as telling particular stories or as supporting or not supporting a particular research question, hypothesis or prediction. • Qualitative data on the other hand, confront the researcher in non-numerical (often textual) form and this necessitates quite different analytical approaches to extracting meaning from the data and generating appropriate interpretations. However, in some circumstances, it may be appropriate to transform qualitative data into quantitative form, which means that there may be instances where qualitative research data can be usefully analysed using quantitative methods. This book should prove very useful to the reader in either case.