Using everyday numbers effectively in research / Stephen Gorard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gorard, Stephen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Research--Statistical methods.

Research.

Research--Methodology.

Physical Description:

xvii, 94 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, [2006]

Summary:

Can you add up the number of students in your classroom? Can you tell which of two test scores is the larger? Can you programme a video or DVD recording using a 24-hour clock? If so, then this book will show you how everyday numbers like these can also be used to make your research more powerful, and enable you to spot the abuses of numbers that are as common in research as they are in everyday life.

This book illustrates how numbers can be used routinely and successfully for research purposes - without you ever having to consider confidence intervals, probability densities, Gaussian distributions, or indeed any of those complicated and generally useless things that appear in treatises on statistics. This no-nonsense guide should prove essential reading for all educational and social science researchers.

Contents:

1 Introducing Everyday Numbers 1

Using Everyday Numbers Is Easy 5

Discoveries Using Everyday Techniques 1: Do We Have Enough Teachers? 20

2 Judgement with Everyday Numbers 31

The Likely Sources of Error 31

How Big Is a 'Difference', and Other Issues? 35

'Effect' Sizes? 38

How Unfair Is an Inequality, and Related Questions? 43

Discoveries Using Everyday Techniques 2: Is There a School Effect? 50

3 Defending the Use of Everyday Numbers 59

Not Four Levels of Measurement 60

Not the Standard Deviation 63

Not Significance Testing 73

Not a Super-population 78

Not Multivariate Statistics 79

Judgement not Calculus 83.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0826488307

OCLC:

62714694