Quantitative Methods
Archives for January 2012 « Recent Articles
Statistical hypothesis testing: One versus two-sided statements.
When generating your hypothesis statements, be sure to consider whether your tests will be one or two-sided before you start.
From my experience, the concept of directional hypothesis testing is a challenge to learners who are somewhat new to using statistical concepts to prove or disprove a hypothesis. One important guideline to keep in mind is to be sure to state the direction of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Are you simply trying to prove that the independent variable does affect the dependent variable in some way? Or, are you trying to prove that it affects it in a specific…
Having tech issues with some aspect of SPSS 19? This may help!
Hello Doctoral Learners:
If you're like me - I use SPSS daily - there can be occassions when you need SPSS tech support assistance. For this purpose, I have pasted below the resource that I use when I have a technical/IT issue with SPSS 19. From my experience, they usually respond within 4 or so hours. Of course, be sure to be specific when emailing them to expedite the process! I hope that it also helps you!
Best regards,
Dr. Daniel J. Smith, MA, MBA, PhD
480-861-8851…
If you manage your dissertation as a “project” with all the best practices of project management, the result may be a better final product with much less effort.
Many of you have likely heard of the term "project management" that is often used in industry to describe the steps of managing a project. In fact, you can become certified in project management - a "PMP" certification is in demand in industry because of the value in being able to manage a project from start to finish. In fact, there are many books that you can purchase on Amazon.com or your local bookstore on the topic. Indeed, there are many "best practices" that you can gain through…
Clarifying Quantitative Survey Input/Output in your Dissertation
If you are using one or more quantitative surveys in your dissertation, be sure to clarify the inputs and outputs.
Hopefully, you have had a chance to watch the latest quantitative webinar on an overview of SPSS that was posted last week.
This week, I want to focus on the importance of identifying the input, and especially the output, of any survey instrument used in a dissertation. I have recently read many dissertations that attempt to quantify one survey's output with another's. For example, one survey may ask how many miles an athlete ran in a week, and another may ask how many liters of water were…
This webinar offers an introduction on SPSS.
Doctoral Learners:
If you are interested in learning more about SPSS, please watch the brief webinar below. It is less than 10 minutes in length, so it's easy to watch and offers some great information on how SPSS can help you with your quantitative research, as well as how to download it, and other helpful tips. If you watch it, let me know what you think about it!
http://dc.gcu.edu/documents/videos/dc-webinars/intro-spss-v19-sept-2011-d-smithflv
Daniel J. Smith, MA, MBA, PhD
480-861-8851…
Remember when we used to use those things called "books?" They had pages in them, and text? Your local public library might offer you some great SPSS learning tools.
I was thinking of GCU's doctoral learners this afternoon as I was working in my local public library. As I was sitting in a chair to work, I happened to see that an entire shelf was dedicated to some very contemporary reference tools on learning about SPSS. For sure, all of these resources are in addition to all the online resources that I have blogged about over the past few months. However, for some learners, having an actual reference book in their hands that instructs them on SPSS might…
An Entertaining and Informative Video: Qualitative VS Quantitative Research
You may enjoy this brief video on qualitative versus quantitative research.
Just a few years ago, I would never have been able to send a video link to you, but today YouTube allows me to easily share informative media with you. The link below is quite an informative video on qualitative versus quantitative research. It is a fun resource - I hope that you enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddx9PshVWXI&feature=related
Best regards,
Daniel J. Smith, MA, MBA, PhD
480.861.8851 (cell)
The importance of well-labeled data tables in quantitative analysis.
If you are doing a quantitative study, it is important to follow a few general guidelines in regard to how the data is displayed in your tables.
After having reviewed many dissertations over the past 15 years, I have noticed an emergent scholar-practitioner trend of extracting data from quantitative dissertations in order to support an argument or conclusion - which may, or may not be, the most accurate assessment of your work. Moreover, the author of the dissertation may also need to copy/paste the tables into a scholarly article at some point in their academic career. For these and other reasons, be sure to label your data tables…
Is an overreliance on "statistical significance" detrimental to the scholar-practitioner's research?
A matter of practical application: “statistical significance” versus “effect size”
"Statistical Significance" is a term that is used in almost all quantitative studies that use inferential statistics (ANOVA, t-tests, regression). However, for practical considerations, there might be an overreliance on the "victory" of achieving statistical significance. Why? Because even though the results may be statistically significant, they may not be of practical value. For example, let's assume that the pre-test average score of a group of students is 74 and the post-test average…
A "best practices" website to help you during your doctoral journey.
After attending four in-person Residencies in Phoenix, I have found that it is very difficult to isolate the best choice of methodology, the optimized approach to the literature review, the data collection approach, or formulating the research questions, among many other dissertation activities, from the dissertation topic itself. Even though the website below was created for "undergraduate dissertations" in the U.K., I find that it presents very holistic and practical advice for doctoral…
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Dr. Daniel Smith shares his expertise on quantitative methodologies, statistics and research design.
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