SELECTING AND USING STATISTICAL TOOLS FOR DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

Preparing this piece of article was borne out to respond to the call from young researchers on how to select appropriate statistical tools and apply it in data analyses. Because the goal of any researcher is to avoid errors which may result into incorrect findings and making wrong conclusion. To avoid such errors is to select appropriate statistical tools and apply it. Statistics is concerned with scientific methods of collecting, organizing, presenting and analyzing data as well as making valid decisions. The selection of appropriate statistical test for data analyzing depends on the nature of data collected and the type and research design. Some conceptual clarifications were discussed to serve as background of the article. These terms includes: data, classification of data, population, sample, variable and its types, and others. Preparing an ungrouped frequency distribution table, the researcher needs three basic steps: List the scores either in ascending or descending, tallying the scores and determining the number of times each scores occurred. The number of strokes at each score is counted and written down as frequency of that particular score, that in column 3 of the table. Preparing a grouped frequency distribution table, whenever the researcher has a large number of scores, it may be laborious to list all the scores. A convenient and faster method is to group the scores before tallying them. The following procedure should be adopted, when preparing a grouped frequency distribution table: group the scores into class intervals. To do this one need to understand the following concepts: class interval, class size, class limit and class boundaries, tally the scores in column 2 using the class intervals and write down the frequency of occurrence of each class interval in column 3. The descriptive and inferential statistics were also discussed and the steps involved in selecting appropriate statistics tests. Therefore, it is against this background, that the writers give details step-by-step of statistical tests that are generally employed in analyzing research data.