Research and Descriptives

Dr. Bradley K. Loo, RN,MSN,DBA(u)

A. Maceda Integrated School
 What is Research?
 General definition is “finding answers to
questions in an organized and logical and
systematic fashion”
 the systematic investigation into and study of
materials and sources in order to establish
facts and reach new conclusions. –MWD
 Research is a careful and detailed study into
a specific problem, concern, or issue using
the scientific method.
 Can be diverse
 How Have We Searched for
Truth?
 1) tradition or custom

 2) authority

 3) personal experience

 4) deductive reasoning

 5) scientific inquiry (research)

 Nature of Research
 Systematic – ordered structure of inquiry

 Logical – process to evaluate conclusions drawn

 Empirical -collection of data (facts, experience, etc.) on which to

base decisions

 Reductive – individual events (data) are used to establish

general relationships

 Replicable – process is recorded so findings and procedures can

be tested again
 Deduction and Induction
 Deductive
 using logic from general to specific

 often used for generating our hypotheses in

research
 Inductive
 from specific to general

 general conclusions based on many specific

observations
 Integration of these forms the scientific method
 Deductive
 (QUALITATIVE)
 using logic from general to specific

 Inductive
 (QUANTITATIVE)
 from specific to general
3 Types of Research Methodologies
 Qualitative research is an approach for
exploring and understanding the meaning
individuals or groups ascribe to a social or
human problem.
Types of Qualitative Designs
 Narrative research is a design of inquiry from
the humanities in which the researcher
studies the lives of individuals and asks one
or more individuals to provide stories about
their lives (Riessman, 2008).
Narrative Design
 often retold or restoried by the researcher
into a narrative chronology
 in the end, the narrative combines views from
the participant’s life with those of the
researcher’s life in a collaborative narrative
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
 Phenomenological research is a design of
inquiry coming from philosophy and
psychology in which the researcher describes
the lived experiences of individuals about a
phenomenon as described by participants.
 has strong philosophical underpinnings and
typically involves conducting interviews
(Giorgi, 2009; Moustakas, 1994).
 Grounded theory is a design of inquiry from
sociology in which the researcher derives a
general, abstract theory of a process, action,
or interaction grounded in the views of
participants.
 involves using multiple stages of data
collection and the refinement and
interrelationship of categories of information
(Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2007).
 Ethnography is a design of inquiry coming
from anthropology and sociology in which the
researcher studies the shared patterns of
behaviors, language, and actions of an intact
cultural group in a natural setting over a
prolonged period of time.

 Case studies are a design of inquiry found in
many fields, especially evaluation, in which
the researcher develops an in-depth analysis
of a case, often a program, event, activity,
process, or one or more individuals.
 Cases are bounded by time and activity, and
researchers collect detailed information using
a variety of data collection procedures over a
sustained period of time (Stake, 1995; Yin,
2009, 2012).
Mixed Methodology
 Mixed methods research is an approach to
inquiry involving collecting both quantitative
and qualitative data, integrating the two forms
of data, and using distinct designs that may
involve philosophical assumptions and
theoretical frameworks.
Types of Mixed designs
 Convergent parallel mixed methods
 Explanatory sequential mixed methods
 Exploratory sequential mixed methods
Quantitative Method
 Quantitative research is an approach for
testing objective theories by examining the
relationship among variables.
Quantitative Designs
 Non Experimental
 Descriptive (what)

 Correlational (relationships)

 Comparative (Difference)

 Experimental (effects )
 True

 Quasi-Expe
WORKSHOP 1:
SPECIFIC TOPIC METHODOLOGY DESIGN SPECIFIC
QUESTION

1.

2.

3.
The next session will start in

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The five basic words of Statistics
 Population – all the members of the group
which you want to draw a conclusion.
 A collection, or set, of individuals or objects
or events whose properties are to be
analyzed
 Sample - A subset of the population
 The part of the population selected for
analysis.
 Parameter – a numerical measure that
describes a characteristics of a population
 Example 30% patients suffering from
dengue are treated at a particular hospital
last year using the newest medical
procedure and new technology
 Statistic-A numerical value summarizing the
sample data.
 15% of the selected patients suffering from
dengue are treated at a particular hospital
last year using the newest medical
procedure and new technology.

Other terminologies
 Data (singular): The value of the variable
associated with one element of a population
or sample. This value may be a number, a
word, or a symbol.
Branches of statistics
 Descriptive Statistics:  Inferential Statistics:
collection, presentation, making decisions and
and description of drawing conclusions
sample data. about populations.
Variable

Any characteristic which is subject to

change and can have more than one
value such as age, intelligence,
motivation, gender, etc.
Dependent Variable
(effects towards)

 Variable affected by the independent

variable
 It responds to the independent variable.
Independent Variable
(cause)
• Variable that is presumed to influence
other variable
• It is the presumed cause, whereas the
dependent variable is the presumed
effect.
Example 1
You are interested in “How stress affects
mental state of human beings?”
Independent variable ----- Stress
Dependent variable ---- mental state of human
beings
You can directly manipulate stress levels in your
human subjects and measure how those stress
levels change mental state.
Example 2

Promotion affects employees’ motivation

Independent variable ----- Promotion

Dependent variable ----Employees motivation

Uses of statistics

 Interpret research studies –validity of findings

of health education and medical research
 Evaluate statistics used every day – hospital
mortality rates, prevalence of infectious
diseases.
 Presentation of data to audiences effective
arrangement and grouping of information and
graphical display of data .
 Illustrate central tendency and variability
 Formulate and test hypotheses
 Generalize from a sample to the population
Interval Variable
• Interval variables have a numerical value

• These have order and equal intervals.

• They allow not only to rank order the items that

are measured but also to quantify and compare
the magnitudes of differences between them.
 Example
Suppose you have a variable such as monthly
income that is measured in rupees, and we have
three people who make

• P10,000
• P15,000 and
• P20,000
Ratio Variable

A ratio variable is similar to an interval variable

with one difference: the ratio makes sense.
 Example
• Let’s say respondents were being surveyed about their
stress levels on a scale of 0-10.

• A respondent with a stress level of 10 should have

twice the stress experienced as a respondent who
selected a stress level of 5.

Age, height, and weight are also good examples of ratio

variables. Someone who is 6’.0” tall is twice as tall as
someone who is 3’.0” tall.
Nominal/Categorical Variable

 They can be measured only in terms of whether the

individual items belong to certain distinct categories
 We cannot quantify or even rank/order the categories:
 Nominal data has no order
 One cannot perform arithmetic (+, -, /, *) or logical
operations (>, <, =) on the nominal data.
Example

Gender: 1. Male
2. Female

Marital Status: 1. Unmarried

2. Married
3. Divorcee
4. Widower
Ordinal Variable
 An ordinal variable is a nominal variable, but its different states are
ordered in a meaningful sequence.
 Ordinal data has order but the intervals between scale points may be
uneven.
 Because of lack of equal distances, arithmetic operations are
impossible, but logical operations can be performed on the ordinal
data.
 A typical example of an ordinal variable is the socio-economic status
of families.
We know 'upper middle' is higher than 'middle' but we cannot
say 'how much higher'.
Example

A questionnaire on the time involvement of scientists in the 'perception and

identification of research problems'.
The respondents were asked to indicate their involvement by selecting one of
the following codes:

1 = Very low or nil

2 = Low
3 = Medium
4 = Great
5 = Very great

Here, the variable 'Time Involvement' is an ordinal variable with 5 states.

Workshop 2:
Specific Question Variables measured Identified Design
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Mean, Median, Mode & Range
Mean, Median, Mode are all
types of average. An average
summarises groups of data.
Mean
 Average often means the ‘mean’
 Mean = total of the numbers divided by how
many numbers.
Class shoe sizes: 3, 5, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 6
Add up the numbers:
3 + 5 + 5 + 6 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 5 + 6 = 40
Divide by how many numbers:
40 ÷ 10 = 4
The class mean shoe size is 4
 Median
 Median is the middle value
 Put the numbers in order
 Choose the number in the middle of the
list.
 If there are 2 numbers in the middle then it
is halfway between them.
Class shoe sizes: 3, 5, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 6
Put in order: 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6

The class median shoe size is 4.5

 Mode
 Mode is the most common number
 Put the numbers in order
 Choose the number that appears the most
frequently.
 Sometimes there may be more than one
mode.
Class shoe sizes: 3, 5, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 6
Put in order: 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6

The class modal shoe size is 5.

 Range
 Range is how far from biggest to smallest.
 Put the numbers in order
 Take the smallest number from the
largest.

Class shoe sizes: 3, 5, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 6

Put in order: 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6
Subtract smallest from largest: 6 – 1 = 5
Range: 5
Variance and Standard
Deviation
Variance
A measure of the spread of the recorded values on a variable. A measure of
dispersion.

The larger the variance, the further the individual cases are from the mean.

Mean
The smaller the variance, the closer the individual scores are to the mean.

Mean
Variance
Variance is a number that at first seems complex to
calculate.

Calculating variance starts with a “deviation.”

A deviation is the distance away from the mean of a case’s score.

Yi – Y-bar If the average person’s car costs $20,000,

my deviation from the mean is - $14,000!
6K - 20K = -14K
Variance: a measure of how data
points differ from the mean
 Data Set 1: 3, 5, 7, 10, 10
Data Set 2: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7

What is the mean and median of the above data set?

Data Set 1: mean = 7, median = 7

Data Set 2: mean = 7, median = 7

But we know that the two data sets are not identical! The
variance shows how they are different.

We want to find a way to represent these two data set

numerically.
How to Calculate?
 If we conceptualize the spread of a distribution as the
extent to which the values in the distribution differ from
the mean and from each other, then a reasonable
measure of spread might be the average deviation, or
difference, of the values from the mean.

( x  X )
N
 Although this might seem reasonable, this expression
always equals 0, because the negative deviations about the
mean always cancel out the positive deviations about the
mean.
 We could just drop the negative signs, which is the same
mathematically as taking the absolute value, which is known
as the mean deviations.
 The concept of absolute value does not lend itself to the kind
of advanced mathematical manipulation necessary for the
development of inferential statistical formulas.
 The average of the squared deviations about the mean is
called the variance.

x  X 
2

  2 For population variance

x  X 
2
For sample variance
s 
2

n 1
 Score
X(  X )
2
XX
X

1
3
2
5
3
7
4
10
5
10
Totals
35

The mean is 35/5=7.

 Score (
X  X)
2
XX
X

1
3 3-7=-4
2
5 5-7=-2
3
7 7-7=0
4
10 10-7=3
5
10 10-7=3
Totals
35
 Score (
X  X)
2
XX
X

1
3 3-7=-4 16
2
5 5-7=-2 4
3
7 7-7=0 0
4
10 10-7=3 9
5
10 10-7=3 9
Totals
35 38
 Score (
X  X)
2
XX
X

1
3 3-7=-4 16
2
5 5-7=-2 4
3
7 7-7=0 0
4
10 10-7=3 9
5
10 10-7=3 9
Totals
35 38

x  X 
2
38
s  2
  7.6
n 5
Example 2

Dive Mark Myrna

1 28 27
2 22 27
3 21 28
4 26 6
5 18 27
Find the mean, median, mode, range?

mean 23 23
median 22 27
range 10 22

What can be said about this data?

Due to the outlier, the median is more typical of overall performance.

Which diver was more consistent?

Dive Mark's Score ( X  X )2
XX
X

1 28 5 25

2 22 -1 1

3 21 -2 4

4 26 3 9

5 18 -5 25

Totals 115 0 64

Mark’s Variance = 64 / 5 = 12.8

Myrna’s Variance = 362 / 5 = 72.4

Conclusion: Mark has a lower variance therefore he is more consistent.

standard deviation - a measure of
variation of scores about the mean
 Can think of standard deviation as the average
distance to the mean, although that's not numerically
accurate, it's conceptually helpful. All ways of saying
the same thing: higher standard deviation indicates
higher spread, less consistency, and less clustering.

x  X 
2
 sample standard deviation: s
n 1

 population standard deviation:

x  
2


N
Another formula
 Definitional formula for variance for data in a
frequency distribution

S 2

 (X  X ) 2
f
f
 Definitional formula for standard deviation for
data in a frequency distribution

S
 ( X  X ) 2
f
f
 The mean is 23

Myrna’s Score X f ( X  X)2 ( X  X )2 x f

XX

28 1

27 3

6 1

115 5
Myrna’s Score X f ( X  X)2 ( X  X )2 x f
XX

28 1 5

27 3 4

6 1 -17

115 5
Myrna’s Score X f ( X  X)2 ( X  X )2 x f
XX

28 1 5 25

27 3 4 16

6 1 -17 289

115 5
 round-off rule – carry
one more decimal
Myrna’s Score X f ( X  X)2 ( X  X )2 x f
place than was
XX
present in the
original data

28 1 5 25 25

27 3 4 16 48

6 1 -17 289 289

115 5 362

Variance = S2 = 362 / 5 = 72.4

Standard Deviation = 72.4 = 8.5