Data Analysis and Report Writing Course Statistics and Demography Programme Secretariat of the Pacific Community Noumea, New Caledonia 2009
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, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia; or telephone (687) 26.20.00, fax (687) 26.38.18 or email: Stats&Demog@spc.int
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... 10 TYPES OF DATA... 14 TYPES OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE VARIABLES... 14 SCALES OF DATA MEASUREMENT... 16 UNIVARIATE, BIVARIATE AND MULTIVARIATE DATA... 18 EXERCISES... 19 SELF-REVIEW... 21 EXCEL COMMANDS... 25 ONE STEP FURTHER... 30 TOPIC 3 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS AND TABLES... 31 PURPOSE OF FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS... 31 STEPS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION... 32 SPECIFYING CLASSES... 32 TRUE CLASS LIMITS... 36 CLASS INTERVALS... 37 CLASS MIDPOINT... 38 QUANTITATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS GROUPING DATA... 38 NOT REPORTED OR NOT STATED CASES... 40 TABLES... 41 PARTS OF A TABLE... 42 ROUNDING... 43 CALCULATING PERCENTAGES... 44 EXERCISES... 45 SELF-REVIEW... 49 RELATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS... 51 FREQUENCY DENSITY... 51 CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION... 52 EXCEL PIVOTTABLE REPORTS... 55 ONE STEP FURTHER... 61 SUMMARY... 63 TOPIC 4 GRAPHICAL PRESENTATION... 65 INTRODUCTION... 65 GENERAL RULES WHEN PREPARING GRAPHS... 65 SCATTER DIAGRAMS... 66 BAR CHARTS... 67 PIE CHARTS... 68 LINE GRAPHS... 68 HISTOGRAMS... 69 FREQUENCY POLYGONS... 73 EXERCISES... 75 CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS... 77 Data Analysis Course
Data Analysis EXCEL 97 CREATING CHARTS... 81 ONE STEP FURTHER... 87 TOPIC 5 MEASURES OF LOCATION... 91 THE CONCEPT OF LOCATION... 91 DEFINITIONS AND TYPES OF AVERAGES... 93 ARITHMETIC MEAN... 95 THE MEDIAN... 97 THE MODE... 98 SUMMARY OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF AVERAGES AND THEIR USES... 99 FREQUENTLY OCCURRING SHAPES OF POPULATION DISTRIBUTIONS... 101 EXERCISES... 103 SELF-REVIEW... 105 INTRODUCTION... 107 CALCULATING THE ARITHMETIC MEAN OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION... 107 CALCULATING THE MEDIAN OF A FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION... 111 QUARTILES... 114 THE GEOMETRIC MEAN... 116 SUMMARY OF ADDITIONAL TYPES OF AVERAGES... 117 EXCEL FUNCTIONS... 119 ONE STEP FURTHER... 123 SUMMARY... 124 TOPIC 6 MEASURES OF VARIATION... 125 THE CONCEPT OF VARIATION... 125 THE RANGE... 126 STANDARD DEVIATION... 129 PROPERTIES OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION... 134 COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION... 134 NORMAL DISTRIBUTION... 135 REFERENCE RANGES FOR A STANDARD DEVIATION... 136 SUMMARY OF THE MEASURES OF VARIABILITY... 137 ONE FINAL CHARACTERISTIC OF A DISTRIBUTION... 138 EXERCISES... 139 SELF-REVIEW... 141 EXCEL FUNCTIONS 2... 143 TOPIC 7 ANALYSING WEIGHTED DATA... 145 INTRODUCTION... 145 WHAT ARE WEIGHTS?... 145 USING WEIGHTS IN ANALYSIS... 146 ESTIMATING THE MEAN... 147 ESTIMATING THE VARIANCE OF THE POPULATION... 147 CREATING FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS... 148 POPULATION PROPORTIONS... 149 STANDARD ERRORS... 150 EXERCISES... 155 EXCEL STANDARD ERRORS... 157 TOPIC 8 PROPORTIONS... 167 INTRODUCTION... 167 PROPORTIONS... 167 SIMPSON S PARADOX AN EXAMPLE... 168 RATES... 169 RATIOS... 171 Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Data Analysis PERCENTAGES... 173 EXERCISES... 176 TOPIC 9 DATA INTERPRETATION... 179 INTRODUCTION... 179 READING STATISTICAL TABLES AND GRAPHS... 179 WRITING UP THE ANALYSIS... 182 INTERPRETING THE RESULTS... 184 EXERCISES... 188 TOPIC 10 WRITING DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS... 191 INTRODUCTION... 191 UNDERSTANDING THE BRIEF... 191 RESEARCHING THE INFORMATION... 192 ORGANISING THE INFORMATION... 193 WRITTEN OUTLINES... 193 MIND MAPS... 194 EXERCISE... 197 FISHBONE DIAGRAMS OR HORIZONTAL PLANS... 199 TRIANGLE DIAGRAMS... 200 TREE DIAGRAMS... 200 SUMMARY... 201 COMPOSING THE ROUGH DRAFT... 201 PREPARING THE FINAL DRAFT... 201 REPORTS MORE INFORMATION... 203 DETAILED FORMAT OF A FORMAL REPORT... 205 EXERCISE... 209 MICROSOFT WORD... 211 SELECTING CELLS IN A TABLE... 218 GLOSSARY OF STATISTICAL TERMS... 229 Data Analysis Course