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Research Design

When trying to make sense of the world using statistics, it’s important to consider which type of research design will provide you with the most accurate answer for the type of question you are asking.Typically, the selection of a particular design involves an amount of horse trading between the extent to which a research environment is able to be controlled versus only being able to be observed, and whether the research goal involves determining some underlying cause for a phenomenon (science), or whether the goal is to optimize the yield or output for a specific process while minimizing effort (technology).

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics is the use of statistical and graphic techniques to present information about the data set being studied. Computing descriptive statistics and examining graphic displays of data is an advisable preliminary step in data analysis. Descriptive statistics and graphic displays are also the final product in some contexts: for instance, a business may want to monitor total volume of sales for its different locations without any desire to use that information to make inferences about other businesses.