Report Writing Course

Transcription

1 Data Analysis and Report Writing Course Statistics and Demography Programme Secretariat of the Pacific Community Noumea, New Caledonia 2009

2 This training material has been prepared by the Statistics for Development Programme at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. It is aimed at middle level staff who work with statistical data and shows them how to analyse and present data. The material contained here should not be reproduced without the permission of the SPC. Enquiries should be addressed to the Manager of the Statistics for Development Programme, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, B.P. D5, Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia; or telephone (687) , fax (687) or

3 Data Analysis Table of Contents TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION... 1 INTRODUCTION... 1 WHY DO WE ANALYSE DATA?... 1 THE STATISTICAL PROCESS... 3 EXERCISES... 5 SELF-REVIEW... 7 TOPIC 2 VARIABLES... 9 INTRODUCTION... 9 CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS... 9 CASE STUDY LABOUR FORCE DEFINITIONS TYPES OF DATA TYPES OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE VARIABLES SCALES OF DATA MEASUREMENT UNIVARIATE, BIVARIATE AND MULTIVARIATE DATA EXERCISES SELF-REVIEW EXCEL COMMANDS ONE STEP FURTHER TOPIC 3 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS AND TABLES PURPOSE OF FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS STEPS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION SPECIFYING CLASSES TRUE CLASS LIMITS CLASS INTERVALS CLASS MIDPOINT QUANTITATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS GROUPING DATA NOT REPORTED OR NOT STATED CASES TABLES PARTS OF A TABLE ROUNDING CALCULATING PERCENTAGES EXERCISES SELF-REVIEW RELATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS FREQUENCY DENSITY CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION EXCEL PIVOTTABLE REPORTS ONE STEP FURTHER SUMMARY TOPIC 4 GRAPHICAL PRESENTATION INTRODUCTION GENERAL RULES WHEN PREPARING GRAPHS SCATTER DIAGRAMS BAR CHARTS PIE CHARTS LINE GRAPHS HISTOGRAMS FREQUENCY POLYGONS EXERCISES CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS Data Analysis Course

4 Data Analysis EXCEL 97 CREATING CHARTS ONE STEP FURTHER TOPIC 5 MEASURES OF LOCATION THE CONCEPT OF LOCATION DEFINITIONS AND TYPES OF AVERAGES ARITHMETIC MEAN THE MEDIAN THE MODE SUMMARY OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF AVERAGES AND THEIR USES FREQUENTLY OCCURRING SHAPES OF POPULATION DISTRIBUTIONS EXERCISES SELF-REVIEW INTRODUCTION CALCULATING THE ARITHMETIC MEAN OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION CALCULATING THE MEDIAN OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION QUARTILES THE GEOMETRIC MEAN SUMMARY OF ADDITIONAL TYPES OF AVERAGES EXCEL FUNCTIONS ONE STEP FURTHER SUMMARY TOPIC 6 MEASURES OF VARIATION THE CONCEPT OF VARIATION THE RANGE STANDARD DEVIATION PROPERTIES OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION NORMAL DISTRIBUTION REFERENCE RANGES FOR A STANDARD DEVIATION SUMMARY OF THE MEASURES OF VARIABILITY ONE FINAL CHARACTERISTIC OF A DISTRIBUTION EXERCISES SELF-REVIEW EXCEL FUNCTIONS TOPIC 7 ANALYSING WEIGHTED DATA INTRODUCTION WHAT ARE WEIGHTS? USING WEIGHTS IN ANALYSIS ESTIMATING THE MEAN ESTIMATING THE VARIANCE OF THE POPULATION CREATING FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS POPULATION PROPORTIONS STANDARD ERRORS EXERCISES EXCEL STANDARD ERRORS TOPIC 8 PROPORTIONS INTRODUCTION PROPORTIONS SIMPSON S PARADOX AN EXAMPLE RATES RATIOS Secretariat of the Pacific Community

5 Data Analysis PERCENTAGES EXERCISES TOPIC 9 DATA INTERPRETATION INTRODUCTION READING STATISTICAL TABLES AND GRAPHS WRITING UP THE ANALYSIS INTERPRETING THE RESULTS EXERCISES TOPIC 10 WRITING DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS INTRODUCTION UNDERSTANDING THE BRIEF RESEARCHING THE INFORMATION ORGANISING THE INFORMATION WRITTEN OUTLINES MIND MAPS EXERCISE FISHBONE DIAGRAMS OR HORIZONTAL PLANS TRIANGLE DIAGRAMS TREE DIAGRAMS SUMMARY COMPOSING THE ROUGH DRAFT PREPARING THE FINAL DRAFT REPORTS MORE INFORMATION DETAILED FORMAT OF A FORMAL REPORT EXERCISE MICROSOFT WORD SELECTING CELLS IN A TABLE GLOSSARY OF STATISTICAL TERMS Data Analysis Course

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