Course Leader: Dr Clair Wilkins, WISERD Quantitative Research Team
The course introduced a variety of quantitative methods, from simple descriptive statistics to techniques for analysing different types of quantitative data. The course also covered the use of SPSS as an analytical tool. We began with the very basics, from different types of variables, descriptive statistics such as mean, median, mode etc then will move onto a session on the computer with the basics of SPSS. In this session, attendees learned how to enter data, define variables and produce simple statistics and frequency charts. We then moved on to look at hypotheses, significance, different types of experimental design and the appropriate statistical tests. We used appropriate data sets, critique journal articles which use quantitative methods and again will use SPSS to look at different types of analysis. The course was meant to give a basic grounding in how, if you wish, to analyse quantitative data yourself but more importantly to give you the ability to understand and to critique the quantitative research of others.”