Introduction to Data Analysis Handbook - AED Center for Early Care ...

Excerpts: Quantitative Data Analysis: An Introduction
Report to Program Evaluation and Methodology Division.
United States General Accounting Office, 1992
Successful data analysis, whether quantitative or qualitative, requires:
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Understanding of a variety of data analysis methods,
Planning data analysis early in a project and making revisions in the plan as the work
develops;
Understanding which methods will best answer the study questions posed, given the
data that have been collected;
once the analysis is finished recognizing how weaknesses in the data or the analysis
affect the conclusions that can properly be drawn.
Data Analysis
After the data are collected, evaluators need to see whether their expectations regarding
data characteristics and quality have been met. Choice among possible analyses should
be based partly on the nature of the data—for example, whether many observed values
are small and a few are large and whether the data are complete. if the data do not fit the
assumptions of the methods they had planned to use, the evaluators have to regroup and
decide what to do with the data they have.
Balancing the analytic alternatives calls for the exercise of considerable judgment.
Generic Types of Quantitative Questions
Generic Question
What is a typical value of the variable?
How much spread is there among the cases? To what extent are two
or more variables associated?
To what extent are there causal relationships among two or more
variables?
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