Quantitative Data Analysis 101

Tutorial: Descriptive vs Inferential

Statistics (With Examples)
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Introduction
Let us explore the often confusing world of
quantitative data analysis. We're going to
explore what quantitative data analysis is,
some of the most popular analysis methods
and how to choose the right methods for your
research. The quantitative data analysis is
one of those things that often strikes fear into
students it's totally

Quantitative Data Analysis

Understanding quantitative analysis is a
complex topic full of daunting lingo like
medians, modes, correlations, and regression.
Suddenly we all wish, we had paid a little
more attention in math class. Now the good
news is that while quantitative data analysis
is a mammoth topic gaining a working
understanding of the basics isn't that hard
even for those of us who avoid numbers and
math at all costs. In this video, we'll break the
quantitative analysis down into simple bite-
sized chunks so you can get comfy with the
core concepts and approach your research
with confidence. So, let's start with the most
basic question what exactly is quantitative
data analysis?

What exactly is Quantitative Data Analysis

The quantitative data analysis simply means

analyzing data that is numbers-based or data
that can be easily converted into numbers
without losing any meaning. For example,
category-based variables like gender,
ethnicity, or native language can all be
converted into numbers without losing
meaning. For example, English could equal
one, French could equal two, and so on. This
contrasts against qualitative data analysis
where the focus is on words, phrases, and
expressions that cannot be reduced to
numbers.
It is generally used for three purposes. First, it
is used to measure differences between
groups. For example, average height
differences between different groups of
people. Second, it is used to assess
relationships between variables. For example,
the relationship between weather
temperature and voter turnout. Third, it is
used to test hypotheses in a scientifically
rigorous way. For example, a hypothesis
about the impact of a certain vaccine. Again,
this contrasts with qualitative analysis which
can be used to analyze people's perceptions
and feelings about an event or situation. In
other words, things that cannot be reduced to
numbers. Since quantitative data analysis is
all about analyzing numbers. It is no surprise
that it involves statistics.

Statistical Analysis Methods

It forms the engine that powers quant
analysis. These methods can vary from pretty
basic calculations, for example, averages and
medians to more sophisticated analyses for
example correlations and regressions.

The two branches of quantitative data analysis

Quantitative analysis is powered by statistical
analysis methods. There are two
main branches of statistical methods:
descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
In your research, you might only use
descriptive statistics, or you might use a mix
of both depending on what you are trying to
figure out. In other words, depending on your
research questions, aims, and objectives.

Before I can explain both terms, it is

important to understand two important words:
population and sample. In statistics, the
population is the entire group of people
or animals or organizations or whatever you
are interested in researching. For example, if
you were interested in researching Tesla
owners in the US, then the population would
be all Tesla owners in the United States;
however, it is extremely unlikely that you can
interview or survey every single Tesla owner
in the US. Realistically, you will only get
access to a few hundred or maybe a
few thousand owners using an online survey.
This smaller group of accessible people,
whose data you actually collect, is called your
sample. So, to recap the population is the
entire group of people you are interested in,
and the sample is the subset of that
population that you can actually get access
to. In other words, the population is the full
chocolate cake whereas the sample is just a
slice of that cake.

Descriptive statistics focus on describing the

sample, while inferential statistics aim to
make predictions about the population based
on the findings within the sample. In other
words, we use one group of statistical
methods, descriptive statistics, to investigate
the slice of cake and another group of
methods, inferential statistics, to draw
conclusions about the entire cake. Let us take
a closer look at each of these branches in
more detail, starting with descriptive
statistics.

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics serve a simple

but critically important role in your
research to describe your data set. In
other words, they help you understand the
details of your sample unlike inferential
statistics. Descriptive statistics do not aim to
make inferences or predictions about the
entire population. They are purely interested
in the details of your specific sample when
you are writing up your analysis. Descriptive
statistics are the first set of stats you will
cover before moving on to inferential
statistics but depending on your research
objectives and research questions.

Some common statistical tests used in this

branch include the following:

Mean (average)

The mean is simply the mathematical average

of a range of numbers.

Median

This is the midpoint in a range of numbers

when the numbers are all arranged in order. If
the data set makes up an odd number, then
the median is the number right in the middle
of the set. If the data set makes up an even
number, then the median is the midpoint
between the two middle numbers.

Mode

The mode is simply the most commonly

repeated number in the data set.

Standard Deviation

This metric indicates how dispersed a range

of numbers is. In other words, how close all
the numbers are to the mean, the average. In
cases where most of the numbers are quite
close to the average, the standard deviation
will be relatively low. Conversely, in cases
where the numbers are scattered all over the
place, the standard deviation will be relatively
high.

Scenes

Scenes, as the name suggests, indicate how

symmetrical a range of numbers is. In
other words, do they tend to cluster into a
smooth bell curve shape in the middle of the
graph. This is called a normal or parametric
distribution or do they lean to the left or right.
This is called a non-normal or non-parametric
distribution.

Example of descriptive

On the left-hand side is the data set. This

data set details the body weight in kilograms
of a sample of 10 people, on the right-hand
side we have the descriptive statistics for this
data set.

Let’s take a look at each of them first we

can see that the mean weight is 72.4
kilograms. In other words, the average weight
across the sample is 72.4 kilograms.

We can see that the median is very similar to

the mean, the average. This suggests that
this data set has a reasonably symmetrical
distribution. In other words, a relatively
smooth centre distribution of weights
clustered towards the centre moving on to the
mode. There is no mode in this data set, this
is because each number presents itself
only once so there cannot be a most common
number. If hypothetically there were two
people who were both 65 kilograms then the
mode would be 65.

The standard deviation indicates that there is

quite a wide spread of numbers we can see
this quite easily by just looking at
the numbers which range from 55 to 90. This
is quite a stretch from the mean of 72.4. So,
we would expect the standard deviation to be
above zero. Lastly, let us look at the skewness
as a result of negative 0.2 which tells us that
the data is very slightly negatively skewed. In
other words, it has a very slight lean this
makes sense since the mean and the median
are only slightly different. You can see these
descriptive statistics give us some useful
insight into the data set. Of course, this is a
very small data set only, 10 records, so we
cannot read into these statistics too much,
but hopefully, this example helps you
understand how these statistics play out in
reality. Also keep in mind that this is not a list
of all possible descriptive statistics, just the
most common ones. These descriptive
statistics are all fairly basic they are
important for a few reasons. Firstly, they help
you get both a macro and micro-level view of
your data. They help you understand both the
big picture and the finer details. Secondly,
they help you spot potential errors in the
data. For example, if an average is way
higher, then you would expect or responses to
a question are highly varied. This can act as a
warning sign that you need to double-check
the data, and lastly, these descriptive
statistics help inform.

Inferential Statistics

As mentioned above, descriptive statistics

are all about the details of your specific data
set i.e. your sample, inferential statistics aim
to make inferences about the population. In
other words, you will use inferential statistics
to make predictions about what you would
expect to find in the full population. What kind
of predictions you ask, well generally
speaking there are two common types of
predictions that research try to make using
inferential stats. Firstly, predictions about
differences between groups. For example,
height differences between children grouped
by their favorite sport and
secondly relationships between variables for
example the relationship between body
weight and the number of hours a week a
person does yoga. In other words, inferential
statistics, when done correctly allow you to
connect the dots and make predictions about
what you would expect to see in the real-
world population based on what you observe
in your sample data. For this reason,
inferential statistics are used for hypothesis
testing. In other words, to test hypotheses
that predict changes or differences. Of course,
when you are working with
inferential statistics the composition of your
sample is really important. In other words, if
your sample does not accurately represent
the population you are researching then your
findings won't necessarily be very useful. For
example, if your population of interest is a
mix of 50 males and 50 females but your
sample is 80 males you cannot make
inferences about the population based on
your sample since it is not representative.

There are many different statistical analysis

methods within the inferential branch it would
be impossible for us to discuss them all here,
so we'll just take a look at some of the most
common inferential statistical methods so
that you have a solid starting point.

T-tests

T-tests compare the means, the averages, of

two groups of data to assess whether they are
different to a statistically significant extent. In
other words, to see whether they have
significantly different means, standard
deviations, and skewness. For example, you
might want to compare the mean blood
pressure between two groups of people one
that has taken a new medication and one that
has not to assess whether they are
significantly different. Simply looking at the
two means is not enough to draw a
conclusion. You need to assess whether the
differences are statistically significant.

ANOVA

ANOVA stands for analysis of variance. This

test is similar to a t-test. In that it compares
the means of various groups, but anova
allows you to analyze multiple groups not just
two, so it is basically a t-test but on steroids.

Correlation analysis

This type of analysis assesses the relationship

between two variables. In other words, if one
variable increases does the other variable
also increase, decrease or stay the same? For
example, if the average temperature goes up
do average ice cream sales increase too? We
would expect some sort of
relationship between these two variables
intuitively. But correlation analysis allows us
to measure that relationship scientifically.

Regression analysis

Lastly, we have regression analysis. It is

similar to correlation in that it assesses the
relationship between variables, but it goes a
step further to understand the cause and
effect between variables not just whether
they move together. In other words, does one
variable actually cause the other one to move
or do they just happen to move together?
Naturally, thanks to another force just
because two variables correlate does not
necessarily mean that one causes the other.
To make this all a little more tangible, let us
take a look at an example of correlation.

Example of inferential statistics

Here is a scatter plot demonstrating

the correlation or the relationship between
weight and height intuitively. We would
expect there to be some sort of relationship
between these two variables, which is what
we see in this scatter plot, in other words the
results tend to cluster together in a diagonal
line from bottom left to top right. The more
tightly the results cluster together to form a
line in any direction the more correlated
they are and therefore the stronger the
relationship between the variables.

As I mentioned these are just a handful of

inferential methods, there are many more.
Importantly, each statistical method has its
own assumptions and limitations. For
example, some methods only work with
normally distributed or parametric data while
other methods are designed specifically for
data that are not normally distributed and
that is exactly why descriptive statistics are
so important. They are the first step to
knowing which inferential methods you can
and cannot use.

How to choose the right quantitative analysis methods

This is the most important question how do I

choose the right quantitative analysis
methods for my research? We have looked at
some of the most common statistical methods
used within quantitative analysis. Let us look
at how you go about choosing the right tool
for the job to choose the right statistical
methods for your research. You need to think
about two important factors: one the type of
quantitative data you have specifically the
level of measurement and the shape of the
data and two your research questions and
hypotheses. Let us take a closer look at each
of these the first thing you need to consider is
the type of data you have collected or the
data you will collect. By data types, I’m
referring to the four levels of measurement
namely nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
So why does this matter? Well, because
different statistical methods require different
types of data. This is one of the assumptions I
mentioned earlier, every method has its
assumptions regarding the type of data. For
example, some methods work with
categorical data like yes or no type questions
while others work with numerical data like
age, weight, or income. If you try to use a
statistical method that does not support the
data type you have, your results will be
largely meaningless. So, make sure you have
a clear understanding of what types of data
you have collected or will collect. Once you
have this, you can then check which statistical
methods support your data types. If you have
not collected your data yet, you can, of
course, reverse the process and look at which
statistical methods would give you the most
useful insights and then design your data
collection strategy around this to ensure that
you collect the correct data types. Another
important factor to consider is the shape of
your data, specifically, does it have a normal
distribution. In other words, is it a bell-shaped
curve centered in the middle or is it very
skewed to the left, or right? Again, different
statistical methods work for different shapes
of data some are designed for symmetrical
data while others are designed for skewed
data. This is another reminder of why
descriptive statistics are so important
since they tell you all about the shape of your
data. The next thing you need to consider is
your specific research questions as well as
your hypotheses. If you have some nature of
your research questions and research
hypotheses, it will heavily influence which
statistical methods, you should use. If you are
just interested in understanding the attributes
of your sample as opposed to the entire
population then descriptive statistics might be
all you need. For example, if you just want to
assess the means or averages and the
medians or centre points of variables in a
group of people, descriptive will do the trick.
On the other hand, if you aim to understand
differences between groups or relationships
between variables and to infer or predict
outcomes in the population then you'll likely
need both descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics. So, it is really important to get very
clear about your research aims and research
questions as well as your hypotheses before
you start looking at which statistical methods
to use. Never shoehorn a specific method into
your research just because you like it or have
experience with it your choice of methods.
Must align with all the factors we have
covered here.

We analyzed quantitative analysis and the

two main branches of statistics and how to
choose the right methods for your research.

Recap

we discussed quantitative analysis is all about

analyzing number-based data which can
include both categorical and numerical data.
These data are analyzed using statistical
methods. The two main branches of statistics
are descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics. Descriptive describe your sample,
the slice of the cake, while inferential make
predictions about what you will find in the
population, the full cake based on what you
have observed in the sample. As we saw
common descriptive statistical metrics include
the mean, the median, the mode, standard
deviation, and skewness. On the inferential
side, we looked at t-tests, ANOVAs, correlation
analysis, and regression analysis, all of which
can help you make predictions about the
population. Lastly, we asked the important
question of how I choose the right statistical
methods. We discussed to choose the
right statistical methods you need to consider
the type of data you are working as well as
your research questions and hypotheses. We
have only looked at a handful of the most
common quantitative methods.