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Chapter 3 Research Framework
adopted, and the time required to “learn” the software. Atlas.ti. is considered most
appropriate for theory building (Lewis and Silver, 2004), which is not the aim of this
study. Therefore NVivo was deemed more suitable. Furthermore, there was training
and support available in the university for this package, and this would assist with
“learning” the software.
As the data generated from this study will also be quantitative in nature, an overview
of different quantitative data analysis approaches will be presented next.
3.9.2 Quantitative Data Analysis
According to Meadows (2003), a simple approach to quantitative data analysis is to
report on each of the important or individual variables within a study. This can be
done using frequency distributions and graphical displays.
Presenting statistical results is the main aim of quantitative data analysis. According
to Burns and Grove (2010), the analysis may produce descriptive statistics including
measures of central tendency (mean, median and mode) and measures of variability
about the average (range and standard deviation). These give the reader a “picture”
of the data collected in the research project. Inferential statistics are the results of a
more complex analysis of the levels of relationships between variables. Inferential
statistics help in making deductions from the data collected, in testing hypotheses
and in relating findings to the sample or population (Polit and Beck, 2006).Other
tests include producing parametric statistics (statistics used to estimate the
characteristic of a population based on assumptions made) or non-parametric
statistics (used only to describe the characteristics of a sample, without being able to
generalise back to its population-they make no assumptions) (Watson, Atkinson and
Egerton, 2006).
As quantitative research involves analysis of numbers, computer software is often
chosen to manage the data and produce statistics. An overview of quantitative data
analysis software will be presented next. This will be followed by a rationale for
selecting the SPSS package for this study.