Data and Data Analysis

• Qualitative

  Data displayed written form descriptive stats

  +High external validity, partic can further ops

  +Meaningful insight

  -Hard to quantify and analyse

  -Hard to compare to other data

  -Interpretative bias, conc are subjective
• Quantitative

  Data displayed numerical form

  +Easier to analyse (stat analyst)

  +Easy to compare with other data

  -Lack depth/detail

  -No meaningful insight to participant view

  -Low external val: partic cant develop points
• Descriptive Statistics


  analysis data to help describe, show or summarise in meaningful way.
• Measures of dispersionAny meas that calcs variation in set of data

  Range-take away smallest from largest val

  + Easy to calculate

  Not account for distribution of scores, can be unrepresentative

  Standard DeviationMeasure of average spread around the mean. Larger the standard deviation, the more spread out the data is (less consistency)

  + More precise than range

  • It may be misleading, effected by extreme scores (outliers).
• Measures of central tendencySingle value to describe average of data sets

  MeanTotal of all values divided by num of values

  +Makes use of all vals, good for interval data (most representative)

  -Influ by outliers so may be unrepresentative

  MedianArranging data from lowest to highest and find central val

  +Not effected by outliers, good for ordinal data

  -Not use all data

  • ModeMost frequent occ in set of data

  +Useful for nominall data (categories)

  -Not useful when several modes (bi modal, tri modal)