Summary
Contents
Subject index
What basic knowledge and skills do novice researchers in social science require? How can students be helped to over-come ‘symbol phobia’ or ‘figure blindness’? This generous and constantly insightful book is designed for social researchers who need to know what procedures to use under what circumstances, in practical research projects. It accomplishes this without requiring an in-depth understanding of statistical theory, but also avoids both trivializing procedures or resorting to ‘cookbook’ techniques. Among the key features of the book are: 1) accessibility - organization of the wide, often bewildering array of methods of data analysis into a coherent and user-friendly scheme of classification: types of analysis and levels of measurement; 2) demystification - the first chapter unpacks commonly taken-for-granted concepts such as ‘analysis’, ‘data’ and ‘quantitative’; 3) location of methods in real research problems. The book is an introduction to the theory and practice of quantitative methods.
Data Reduction: Preparing to Answer Research Questions
Data Reduction: Preparing to Answer Research Questions
Introduction
Before proceeding to apply the methods of data analysis discussed in Chapters 3–6 to answering the six research questions set out in Chapter 2, some preliminary analysis is required. This includes:
- creating scales and indexes;
- recoding variables; and
- describing the characteristics of the samples.
Data reduction reduces responses to a number of ...
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