WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT: FREQUENCY AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
part one: 3 pages
Imagine that you have collected data from 100 patients. You have carefully compiled vitals, pain scores, and medications for each of the patients. However, what does all of this data mean? Is your work now done?
How do we make data meaningful? Why must we move beyond the raw data to ensure that data is purposeful?
Descriiptive analysis is the analysis of the data to develop meaning. Descriiptive analysis provides meaning through showing, describing, and summarizing the data compiled to “reveal characteristics of the sample and to describe study variables” (Gray & Grove, 2020). This allows the researcher to present data in a more meaningful and simplified way.
For this Assignment, summarize your interpretation of the descriiptive statistics provided to you in the Week 4 Descriiptive Statistics SPSS Output document. You will evaluate each variable in your analysis.
Reference: Gray, J. R., & Grove, S. K. (2020). Burns and Grove’s the practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence (9th ed.). Elsevier.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
TO PREPARE:
Review the Week 4 Descriiptive Statistics SPSS Output provided in this week’s Learning Resources.
Review the Learning Resources on how to interpret descriiptive statistics, including how to interpret research outcomes.
Consider the results presented in the SPSS output and reflect on how you might interpret the frequency distributions and the descriiptive statistics presented.
THE ASSIGNMENT: (2–3 PAGES)
Summarize your interpretation of the frequency data provided in the output for respondent’s age, highest school grade completed, and family income from prior month.
Note: A frequency analysis is way of summarizing data by depicting the number of times a data value occurs in the data table or output. It is used to analyze the data set including where the data are concentrated or clustered, the range of values, observation of extreme values, and to determine intervals for analysis that could make sense in categorizing your variable values.
Summarize your interpretation of the descriiptive statistics provided in the output for respondent’s age, highest school grade completed, race and ethnicity, currently employed, and family income from prior month.
Note: The descriiptive analysis includes N (size of your sample), the mean, the median, the standard deviation, the size and spread of your data to determine the variability/variance in your data.
Reminder: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The Sample Paper provided at the Walden Writing Center provides an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates/general#s-lg-box-20293632 Links to an external site.). All papers submitted must use this formatting.
part two: 2 pages
What is the incidence of blood clots from COVID-19 in females over the age of 35?
The above question is an example of a research question. A research question consists of three parts and guides the methods and approaches in which you will study the question to find answers. The research question includes: the question, the topic, and the population or variables. In the example provided above, the question is examining the prevalence of blood clots from severe COVID-19 in a selected population. From this question, the variables can be assessed, considerations can be analyzed, and populations can be sampled in order to guide the research.
During Week 2, you developed a research problem statement based on a topic of interest to you or your specific area of practice. Using this research problem statement, you will develop a research question. “A research question is a concise, interrogative statement that is worded in the present tense and includes one or more of a study’s principal concepts or variables” (Gray & Grove, 2020). These questions typically point to the type of study that will be conducted and serves as a guide for the research.
For this Discussion, reflect on your research problem statement. Consider the independent and dependent variables of your research problem through the construction of a research question. Reflect on the potential levels of measurement for your variables and the rationale for the labels, as well as consider the advantages and challenges that you might experience in the statistical analysis of your proposed variables.
Reference: Gray, J. R., & Grove, S. K. (2020). Burns and Grove’s the practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence (9th ed.). Elsevier.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
TO PREPARE:
Review your research problem statement from Week 2 to develop your research question.
Review the Learning Resources on how to describe variables.
Consider the levels of measurement for your variables: nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio.
After reviewing your research question and considering the levels of measurement, analyze your classification for each variable. What was behind your reasoning for labeling the variables? How might the data be analyzed based on these labels?
Consider advantages and challenges that you might encounter in the statistical analysis of your proposed variables.
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