A Layperson’S Guide to Understanding Research and Data Analysis

By Lynda Rose Bruce

This book is written for busy people who need to understand the information that is flooding them and find ways to interpret it. You may be a business executive, a medical doctor, a stay-at-home mother or father wanting to understand the Gallup poll results in the daily newspaper, or a student studying nursing, counseling, psychology, sociology, or even mathematics. Yet you need to quickly be brought into the world of research and data analysis. It does not require that you dedicate a year of your life to take a course in social-science research and quantitative data analysis. In fact, this book will not have formulas or require you to calculate mathematical functions. But you do need to have the dedication to try to understand what might be considered another language. You can do it at a pace that suits your lifestyle. You might want to take a look at the index at the end of the book to see if there are any terms youve been interested in or wondered about. It is very nontraditional in that its focus is on the concepts behind these processes rather than asking you to learn formulas and how to calculate data. If you have a desire to learn more about what is going on, there are many excellent texts in the references.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493125616

Lynda Rose Bruce

Dr. Bruce loves to learn. In fact, she has dedicated her life to learning, teaching, and analyzing data for many organizations. She earned a BA in psychology and MA in counseling from Chico State University in California. She then earned an EdD from the University of California at Berkeley with a focus on measurement and quantitative methods in educational psychology. Out of an interest for spirituality and metaphysics, she earned a PhD in integral energy medicine from Holos graduate school. She worked for twenty-eight years at Sonoma State University in Northern California starting as the psychometrist and ending up as the associate vice president for institutional research. She also holds a black belt in Kodenkan Jujitsu. She enjoys cooking, gardening, playing the piano, and spending time with her family and friends.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Lynda Rose Bruce, EdD, PhD.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013919860

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4931-2560-9

   Softcover   978-1-4931-2559-3

   eBook   978-1-4931-2561-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 11/05/2013

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Introduction

Epistemological Development

Research Pods

Learning Outcomes

Chapter 2

Independent And Dependent Variables

Chapter 3

Reliability

Validity

Selecting A Measure

Mental Measurements Yearbook

Tests In Print

Chapter 4

Defining A Research Hypothesis

Describing And Exploring Data

Statistical Notation

The Normal Distribution

Standard Scores

Chapter 5

Sampling And Selecting Samples For Comparison

Statistical Symbols For The Sample And The Population

Type I And Type Ii Error

Hypothesis Testing With Two Samples

Chapter 6

Comparing Two Samples

Assumptions Of The T Statistic

Analysis Of Variance

Multiple Comparisons

Beyond The Analysis Of Variance

Chapter 7

Parametric And Nonparametric Statistics

Chi-Square

Chapter 8

When To Use Which Test

Chapter 9

How To Read A Research Article

Chapter 10

Conclusion

References

In loving memory of my mother,

Florence Eleanor Swedlund Rose

(November 3, 1923-March 15, 2012),

and my father,

Edward Calvin Rose

(October 20, 1922-present)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge Leslie Deming, my partner in life, without whom this book would never have been possible. She is a daily source of inspiration and support. She was my colleague in doing research and statistics for fifteen years and continues to provide wonderful suggestions and ideas. A special thank-you is sent to Dr. Noel Byrne and President Eduardo Ochoa for their recommendations for this work. I would like to thank my many friends for upholding me during times of distress and helping me celebrate during times of joy—Ardath, Anita, Diane, Linda, Mary, Beth, Karen and Jeff, Cynthia, Pat—and to the wonderful staff at Xlibris, especially Xena Teves, who was a taskmaster and helped me move this from an idea into a completed project. Thank you for believing in me and helping me.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Hello and welcome. I am so glad to welcome you into the wonderful and powerful world of quantitative methods, which have been developed over the past two hundred years to help us better understand and get to the truth. There are limitations, which we will explore, and also there is plenty of room for your intuitive knowing, which is also welcome. I have found from teaching research and statistics courses that intuitive knowing is a very dominant source of knowing for many people. So I am here to enhance that and empower you to communicate your truth to the larger scientific world that is trained in the field of quantitative methods.

The following is a brief sketch of my background:

EdD. University of California at Berkeley, 1994, focus on measurement and quantitative methods in educational psychology dissertation—Rasch and Partial Credit Models Applied to Student Outcomes Assessment in the California State University

PhD. Holos University for graduate studies, 2001, integral energy medicine dissertation—Checklist of Health Issues and Illness (CHII): Developing a Reliable and Valid Measure of the Seven Chakras

Twenty-eight years in higher education testing and institutional research primarily at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California; associate vice president of institutional research

This book is written for busy people who need to understand the information that is flooding them and find ways to interpret it. You may be a business executive, a medical doctor, a