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Running Head: STATISTICAL DATA ANALYSIS

Statistical data analysis techniques

Nayeli Itza
University of San Pablo
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Statistical data analysis techniques and examples of situations when each of them is useful.

Your choice of research method will depend heavily on your choice of analysis method.

If you are collecting numerical, data then the method for analyzing will be statistical. If your

research method is a more in depth view a content analysis approach will be used. There are a

wide range of techniques that can be used to analyze your data collected depending on the type

of research performed.

For a statistical analysis its main goal is to identify trends. There are a wide range of

statistical techniques available to analyze quantitative data. When analyzing your data, you are

likely going to find that your data is affected by many things other than the variable you wish to

test. Multivariate Analysis includes many statistical methods that are designed to allow you to

include multiple variables and examine the contribution of each (Multivariate Analysis, 2018).

One of the techniques used in the Multivariate Analysis is the Multi Regression Analysis.

It is used when we want to predict the value of a variable based on the value of two or more

other variables (Richarme, n.d.). For example, you could use multiple regression to understand

whether exam performance can be predicted based on revision time, test anxiety, lecture

attendance and gender. Alternately, you could use multiple regression to understand reasons for

becoming a surrogate and can be predicted based on marital status, income, age and the number

ok kids they might have.

Another of the techniques used is the Discriminant Analysis which is described by the

number of categories that is possessed by the dependent variable (Discriminant Analysis, n.d.).
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In other words, it enables us to examine whether significant differences exist among the groups

and also evaluates the accuracy of the classification. In the field of psychology, it can be used to

differentiate between the sensitive and non-sensitive views of the surrogates towards surrogacy

in terms of their psychological attributes or characteristics.

We then have the Factor Analysis which is a useful tool for investigating variable

relationships for complex concepts such as socioeconomic status, dietary patterns, or

psychological scales. This is an independence technique, in which there is no dependent variable

(Richarme, n.d.). For example, people may respond similarly to questions about income,

education, and occupation, which are all associated with the latent variable socioeconomic status.

The eigenvalue is a measure of how much of the variance of the observed variables a factor

explains. Any factor with an eigenvalue ≥1 explains more variance than a single observed

variable (Rahn, n.d.).

Conjoint analysis is the techniques of survey or market research to estimate the values a

customer place on different attributes of the product. Conjoint analysis is used to study the

factors that influence customers, purchasing decisions. Products possess attributes such as price,

color, ingredients, guarantee, environmental impact, predicted reliability and so on. Example can

be to determine which product/service attributes or features are most important to the market.

Finally, we have the Cluster Analysis its main purpose is to reduce a large data set to

meaningful subgroups of individuals or objects. The division is accomplished on the basis of

similarity of the objects across a set of specified characteristics (Richarme, n.d.). An example of

where it can be used is for the characterization of patients on the basis of clusters of symptoms. It

can be useful in the identification of an appropriate form of therapy. For examples whether past

surrogates needed therapy.

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References

Discriminant Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved from Statistics Solutions:

http://www.statisticssolutions.com/discriminant-analysis/

Multivariate Analysis. (2018). Retrieved from Skills You Need:

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/num/multivariate-analysis.html

Rahn, M. (n.d.). Factor Analysis: A Short Introduction. Retrieved from The Analyst Factor:

https://www.theanalysisfactor.com/factor-analysis-1-introduction/

Richarme, M. (n.d.). Eleven Multivariate Analysis Techniques: Key Tools In Your Marketing

Research Survival Kit. Retrieved from Decision Analyst:

https://www.decisionanalyst.com/whitepapers/multivariate/