Critically evaluating and using data / Ryan Clement.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clement, Ryan, author.

Series:

Student success.

SAGE skills: Student success

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Information literacy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles, CA : SAGE Publications, Inc., 2022.

Summary:

Imagine you have been given a research assignment, on a topic of your choice, in which you must use some data or statistics in making your argument. It is helpful to think about the full process of doing research like this, because quality research projects take time and have several steps-they don't happen in one sitting. First, you must think about your topic and where you might find data on it-who would create it, who would maintain it, and how do you find out who these people are? Second, you need to evaluate and interpret the data you find-is it trustworthy, what is included and excluded, and what needs to be done to the data to make it usable or presentable? Finally, you'll need to use and present the data yourself to help support your research and will need to let others know what data you've used and how to find it. During each of these phases of research, you can use your critical eye and data skills to make sure you are making the best of use of the data and presenting it to your readers as plainly and transparently as possible so that they will understand it well. As you work through a research project using data, you'll follow an iterative process, as in most scholarly research. You'll need to develop a research question, of course, but you'll first need to see what's already been written on this topic and what data is available. You'll need to think about how usable the available data is-does it have issues like bias, accessibility, and documentation? After working through this Skill, you should be able to identify areas of uncertainty in working with data, as well as some techniques for addressing these uncertainties.

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (SAGE, viewed December 24, 2022).

ISBN:

1-0719-0072-2

9781071900727

OCLC:

1341863470