Simple Statistical Analysis

Quantitative Data
15Aug2016
Aaron Franklin Soon

Simple Statistical Analysis

quantitative data involves a lot of

numbers.
statistical analysis is done to make
sense of, and draw some inferences
from the data.
wide range of possible techniques that
can be used.
The
following
provides
a
brief
summary of some of the most common
techniques for summarising data, and
explains when to use each one.

Summarising Data: Grouping

The first thing to do with any data is to summarise it, which means
and
Visualising
to present
it in a way that best tells the story.
The starting point is usually to group the raw data into categories, and/or to
visualise it.
For example, if you think you may be interested in differences by age, the
first thing to do is probably to group your data in age categories, perhaps
ten- or five-year chunks.
One of the most common techniques used for summarising is using
graphs, particularly bar charts, which show every data point in order, or
histograms, which are bar charts grouped into broader categories.
An example is shown below, which uses three sets of data, grouped by four
categories. This might, for example, be men, women, and no gender
specified, grouped by age categories 2029, 3039, 4049 and 5059.

Bar Chart

Summarising Data: Grouping

and Visualising

An alternative to a histogram is aline chart,

which plots each data point and joins them up
with a line. The same data as in the bar chart
are displayed in a line graph below.

Line Chart

Summarising Data: Grouping

and
Visualising
Pie chartsare best used when you are interested in the relative size of
each group, and what proportion of the total fits into each category, as
they illustrate very clearly which groups are bigger.

Pie Chart

Measures of Location: Averages

Theaveragegives you information about the size of the effect of
whatever you are testing, in other words, whether it is large or small.
There are three measures of average: mean, median and mode.
Average, means themean. It has the advantage that it uses all the
data values obtained and can be used for further statistical analysis.
However, it can be skewed by outliers, values which are atypically
large or small.
As a result, researchers sometimes use themedianinstead. This is the
mid-point of all the data. The median is not skewed by extreme values,
but it is harder to use for further statistical analysis.
Themodeis the most common value in a data set. It cannot be used
for further statistical analysis.
The values of mean, median and mode arenotthe same, which is why
it is really important to be clear which average you are talking about.

KISS Principle
Keep
It
Simple
Straightforward

Exercise 1

What can be concluded from the statistics

above?

Exercise 2

20
15
10
5
0

Sum of HSDPA User Num

Sum of HSUPA User Num

What else is lacking here?

Exercise 3

What are the other associated items to these results?

Summary & Findings

Causes and effects?
What is the problem?
What are the symptoms?
What is the root cause?
What are the possible issues related to
it?
What are the possible solutions?
What are the gaps identified?
Is there an explanation to the problem?