Unit 3 Quantitative Analysis Paper

Unit 3: Practitioner Research Techniques Assessment. Part 2; Quantitative Analysis By Stephenson J Sylvester, University of Huddersfield. July 2006

This paper is a discussion in support of the Doctorate of Education Programme Unit 3 Assignment part 2 on Quantitative Analysis. The discussion looks at the usage and value of quantitative data analysis packages like SPSS. A brief comparison is drawn between other methods of data analysis and a summary conclusion is made. A step by step procedure is adopted in answering some key points on the use of SPSS for Windows. Where indicated, the data and information from SPSS version 12.0.1 has been inserted directly into the discussion. One of the first questions that surface is “What does SPSS stand
In the second question “1” is used for a “Yes” response and “2” is used for a “No” response. These codes are to be used as data references in SPSS so the actual numbers used are insignificant. There is a need for consistency throughout the exercise so the numbers used throughout the analysis must be consistent. The responses to the questionnaire are listed in the table below. Data Input Printout gend 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 uni 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00

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Complete the table showing the discrepancies and explain the importance of the discrepancies. Under normal conditions we would expect that the responses from the male population will not be different from that of the responses from the female population in the survey. Additionally, we would expect that there would be an even divide between the respondents answering yes and the respondents answering no in each gender group. Relating to table i, we see that of the 60 respondents, haft were male and half were female. We also note that we would expect that two thirds of the respondents at Sixth Form would express a desire to go to university and this would be the same across both genders. This data is represented in table ii. CHI-SQUARE EXPECTED FREQUENCIES Male [1] Yes [1] No [2] Total Table ii. If we now look at the actual responses given in table i we can see that the total responses for each case is somewhat different from what was expected. This is called the observed frequencies. This data is tabulated in table iii below. 20 10 30 Female [2] 20 10