Connolly,
P. (2007) Quantitative Data Analysis in Education: A Critical
Introduction Using SPSS. London New York: Routledge.
This book provides a refreshing and user-friendly
guide to quantitative data analysis in education for students
and researchers. It assumes absolutely no prior knowledge
of quantitative methods or statistics. Beginning with the
very basics, it provides the reader with the knowledge and
skills necessary to be able to undertake routine quantitative
data analysis to a level expected of published research.
Rather than focusing on teaching statistics
through mathematical formulae, the book places an emphasis
on using SPSS to gain a real feel for the data and an intuitive
grasp of the main concepts and techniques involved. Drawing
extensively upon up-to-date and relevant examples, the reader
will be encouraged to think critically about quantitative
research and its potential as well as its limitations in relation
to education.
Packed with helpful features, this book:
- Provides illustrated step-by-step guides
showing how to use SPSS, with plenty of exercises to encourage
the reader to practice and consolidate their new skills
- Makes extensive use of real-life educational
datasets derived from national surveys in the US and UK
to illustrate key points and to bring the material to life
- Has a companion website that contains
all of the educational datasets used in the book to download
as well as comprehensive answers to exercises and a range
of other useful resources that are regularly updated
The book will therefore appeal not only
to undergraduate and postgraduate students but also to more
established and seasoned educational researchers and lecturers
and professors who have tended to avoid or shy away from quantitative
methods.
Paul Connolly is Professor of Education
at Queen’s University Belfast and has gained extensive
experience researching and publishing in education. He has
taught quantitative methods using SPSS for the last ten years
to undergraduate sociology students and more recently students
on masters programmes in education as well as the taught doctorate
programme (EdD).
Contents
Introduction
- Who is this book for and what is it about?
- What makes this book different?
- Key themes underpinning the book
- Structure of the book
- Companion website
- Differing versions of SPSS
- And finally, what this book expects of
you!
1. Getting Started with SPSS
- Introduction
- Understanding what a dataset is
- Opening an existing dataset in SPSS
- Creating your own dataset
- Conclusions
2. Exploring, Displaying and Summarising
Data
- Introduction
- Different types of variable
- Displaying and summarising scale variables
- Displaying and summarising nominal and
ordinal variables
- Conclusions
3. Analyzing Relationships Between
Variables
- Introduction
- Preparing variables and the dataset for
analysis
- Analyzing relationships between two variables
- Analyzing trends over time
- Conclusions
4. Good Practice in Presenting Findings
- Introduction
- Generating and Editing Tables in SPSS
- Generating and editing charts in SPSS
- Chart Builder
- Conclusions
5. Confidence Intervals and Statistical
Significance
- Introduction
- Sources of bias in samples
- Confidence intervals
- The concept of statistical significance
- Testing for statistical significance
- Conclusions
6. Conducting Statistical Tests
and Calculating Effect Sizes
- Introduction
- Selecting the appropriate statistical
test
- Chi-Square Test
- Mann-Whitney U Test
- Kruskal-Wallis Test
- Independent Samples T-Test
- One-Way ANOVA
- Spearman and Pearson Correlations
- Wilcoxon Test
- Related Samples T-Test
- Analyzing experimental research designs
- Conclusions
7. Where Next?
- Introduction
- Develop your understanding of the nature
of quantitative data and how it is generated
- Face your demons and have a closer look
at the statistics behind the concepts covered in this book
- Move onto more advanced quantitative
data analysis
techniques involving three or more variables
- If you’re still keen for more,
think seriously about enrolling on a statistics course or
programme
- Above all, make sure you enjoy yourself!
References
Appendices
- Defining variables in SPSS versions 9.0
and earlier
- Editing charts in SPSS versions 12.0
and earlier
Further Details
ISBN: 9780415372978 (hbk) 9780415372985
(pbk)
Pre-order
the book (USA)
Order
the book (UK)
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