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Scientific Research Methods

HWRE 7042

Dr. Abebe Worku

5.Data collection methods, data

analysis and Interpretation

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Data
Data means observation or evidence.
• Nature of data:
-Qualitative data or attributes
-Quantitative data or variables
Score is the numerical description of an individual with regard to
some characteristics of variables.
Difference between data and facts:
• Facts are organized in their original form but data are
organized in systematic order.
• Data can be interpreted easily, but fact is not.
• Facts are descriptive in nature but data are exploratory.
• Facts may be directly based on finding.

Methods of Data Collection

Data collection method may depend on the type
of data.
Data can be broadly categorized as;
1. Primary Data: collected by researchers
directly from main sources
2. Secondary Data

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Collection of Primary Data

Primary data is collected through;
• Experiment,
• Interviews,
• Questionnaires,
• Observation,
• Focus Groups,

Experiment
An experiment is a structured study where the
researchers attempt to understand;
• the causes,
• effects,
• and processes involved in a particular process.
This method is usually controlled by the
researcher, who determines which subject is
used, how they are grouped, and the treatment
they receive.
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Design of experiment
• What is design of experiments? Design of
experiments (DOE) is a systematic, efficient
method that enables scientists and engineers to
study the relationship between multiple input
variables (aka factors) and key output variables
(aka responses). It is a structured approach for
collecting data and making discoveries.

Design and analysis of experiments fifth edition (Douglas C. Montgomery)

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Data Collection through Interview

• Personal interview: A personal interview is a
form of direct communication in which an
interviewer asks respondents in a face-to-face
conversational situation.
• Telephone interview: In telephone interviews,
respondents are contacted by telephone in
order to collect data for surveys.

Data Collection through Interview

Pre-requisites and basic tents of interviewing:
• Interviewer must be carefully selected, trained and
briefed,
• There should be honest ,sincere, hardworking,
• Every effort should be made to create friendly
atmosphere of trust and confidence,
• Must ask questions properly,
• Should not show surprise or disappointment (never
judge).

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Situations favoring interviews

• The nature of the approach to research: for undertaking
exploratory study-to explore the subject in-depth, interview
may be included. Semi-structured interview also provide you
with opportunity to probe for answers. Interviewee will get a
chance to realize the situation
• The nature of the questions: when there are a large number
of questions to be answered, questions are either complex or
open ended
• Data quality issues: Semi-structured ,in-depth interview will
help to get reliability ,free of bias, validity and
generalizability

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Interview method
Advantage:
• It is possible to get complete response.
• It is more personal than questionnaire.
• Interviewer has much control over the flow and sequence of
questions .
• It is possible to make survey responsive much to earlier
results.
Disadvantage:
• Information obtained are difficult to analyze.
• It ca not be quantified.
• It need trained interviewer.

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Advantages of Personal Interviews

• Opportunity for Feedback – Interviewer can provide direct
feedback to the respondent, give clarifications and help
alleviate any misconceptions or apprehensions over
confidentiality that the respondent may have in answering the
interviewer’s questions.
• Probing Complex Answers – Interviewers can probe if the
respondent’s answer is not brief or unclear. This gives
interviewers some flexibility in dealing with unstructured
questions and is especially suited for handling complex
questions.
• Length of Interview – If the questionnaire is very lengthy, the
personal interview is the best technique for getting respondents
to cooperate, without overtaxing their patience.

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Advantages of Personal Interviews

• Complete Questionnaires – Personal ensures ensure that the
respondent will answer all questions asked, unlike in telephone
interview where the respondent may hang up or in mail
questionnaire where some questions may go unanswered.
• Props & Visual Aids – Interviewers have the opportunity of
showing respondents items such as sample products, graphs
ands sketches, which can aid in their answers.
• High Participation – Interviewing respondents personally can
increase the likelihood of their participation, as many people
prefer to communicate directly verbally and sharing
information and insights with interviewers.

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Disadvantages of Personal Interviews

• Cost – Personal interviews are usually more expensive than
mail, telephone and internet surveys. Factors influencing the
cost of the interview include the respondents’ geographic
proximity, the length and complexity of the questionnaire, and
the number of non-respondents
• Lack of Anonymity – Respondents are not anonymous in a
personal (face-to-face) interview and may be reluctant to
disclose certain information to the interviewer. Hence,
considerable must be expended by the interviewer when
dealing with sensitive questions to avoid bias effects on the
respondent’s part
• Necessity for Callbacks – When a person selected for
interview cannot be reached the first time, a callback has to be
scheduled which result in extra cost and time spent
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Disadvantages of Personal Interviews

• Variance Effects – It has been shown that the demographic
characteristics of the interviewer can influence the answers of
the respondents. In one study, male interviewers had a much
larger variance of answers than female interviewers in a
sample of most female individuals.
• Dishonesty – Interviewers cheat to make their life easier and
save time and effort.
• Personal Style – The interviewers individual questioning
style, techniques, approach and demeanor may influence the
respondents’ answers.
• Global Considerations – Cultural aspects may influence
peoples’ willingness to participate in an interview (e.g.
repressive Middle Eastern cultures discourage females from
being questioned by male interviewers).

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Telephone Interviews
• In telephone interviews, respondents are contacted by
telephone in order to collect data for surveys
• Telephone interviewing has been used for decades
and, in some ways, has advantages over other
methods of undertaking surveys
• With improvements in the IT-field, computers can be
used to assist in telephone interviewing, and answers
given by respondents can be entered by interviewers
directly into the computer, saving effort, time and
cost

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Advantages of Telephone Interviews

• Speed – Speed is a major advantage of telephone interviewing,
enabling data to be collected on very short notice (example: a
union decides whether to organize a strike by telephone-
interviewing members over a one-day period)
• Cost – Telephone interviews are comparatively cheaper to
conduct than personal interviews. No travel time and travel
cost is involved.
• No Face-to-Face Contact – Because telephone interviews
lack the direct element of interaction, respondents may be
more willing to provide certain information that they would be
reluctant to disclose in a personal (face-to-face) interview

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Advantages of Telephone Interviews

• Cooperation – People may be reluctant to allow
interviewers into their homes, but they may be
willing to cooperate by letting themselves be
interviewed over the telephone.
• Callbacks – Telephone callbacks are easier to
perform than personal interview callbacks.

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Disadvantages of Telephone Interviews

• No Face-to-Face Contact – Interviewer may not be able to
record the respondent’s data fast enough and the
respondent, who cannot see this, may continue to add
data. Also, due to the visual communication gap, there is a
greater tendency for interviewers to record no-answers and
incomplete answers than in a personal interview
• Cooperation – Research shows that response rates in
telephone interviews are declining with the passage of time
and the availability of respondents has also declined for
various reasons. Also, reaching executives in workplaces can
be very difficult due to tight schedules and the work load

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Disadvantages of Telephone Interviews

• Lack of Visual Mediums – Visual aids cannot be used by
interviewers in telephone interviews, hence, surveys which
need visual aids to help respondents cannot be undertaken with
this survey method
• Limited Duration – Length of interview time in a telephone
interview is limited. Too long interview times may result in
exasperated respondents hanging up the telephone or refusing
to answer questions
• Representative Samples – Using the telephone directory as
the basis for sampling can be problematic in the sense that
many persons are unlisted or do not have telephones, but
whose opinions are nevertheless important
• Global Considerations – In many countries, people are
reluctant to divulge information over the telephone.

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Data collection using questionnaire

• Questionnaire is as an instrument for research,
which consists of a list of questions, along
with the choice of answers, printed or typed in
a sequence on a form used for acquiring
specific information from the respondents.

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• Questions in a questionnaire can be;

1. Closed Questions: structure the answer by
only allowing responses which fit into pre-
decided categories.
2. Open Questions: allow people to express what
they think in their own words. Open-ended
questions enable the respondent to answer in
as much detail as they like in their own words.

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Why use a questionnaire?

• Target large amount of people
• Use to describe, compare or explain
• Can cover activities and behaviour,
knowledge, attitudes, preferences
• Specific objectives, standardised and highly
structured questions
• Used to collect quantitative data – information
that can be counted or measured

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Questionnaire design

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Questionnaire design in the context of the

survey process
• Research aim and research questions
• Identify the population and sample
• Decide how to collect replies
• Design your questionnaire
• Run a pilot survey
• Carry out main survey
• Analyse the data
• Report findings and dissemination
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Advantages of questionnaire
• Can target large number of people
• Reach respondents in widely dispersed locations
• Can be relatively low cost in time and money
• Relatively easy to get information from people quickly
• Standardised questions
• Analysis can be straight-forward and responses pre-coded
• Low pressure for respondents
• Lack of interviewer bias
(possibility of ‘ghost interviewer’ effect)
• It is low cost when the universe is large and widely spread
geographically
• Respondents have adequate time to give well thought out answers
• Respondents who are easily approachable can be reached
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Limitations of questionnaire
• Low response rate and consequent bias and
confidence in results
• Unsuitable for some people
– e.g. poor literacy, visually impaired, young children
• Question wording can have major effect on
answers
• Misunderstandings cannot be corrected
• There can be also a lose of questionnaire
• It is the slowest of all methods
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• There is a possibility of ambiguous replies or

omission of replies
• It is difficult to know the willing respondents
are truly representative
• No opportunities to probe and develop answers
• No control over the context and order
questions are answered
• No check on incomplete responses
• Seeks information only by asking, can we trust
what people say? e.g. issues with over-
reporting
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Techniques for minimising non-response

• Good design
– Thoughtful layout, easy to follow, simple
questions, appearance, length, degree of interest
and importance, thank people for taking part
• Pre-notification
• Explanation of selection
• Sponsorship, e.g. letter of introduction /
recommendation
• Cover letter

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Techniques for minimising non-response

• Incentives
– Small future incentives, e.g. prize draw
– Understanding why their input is important
• Reminders
• Confidentiality
• Anonymity
• Pre-paid return envelopes

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Question wording – things to avoid

• Abbreviations
• Alternative meanings (tea, cool, dinner)
• Ambiguity and vague wording (fairly,
generally, you – the respondent, household,
family?)
• Doubled barrelled – ‘do you speak English or
French?’
• Double negatives
• Inappropriate categories

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Question wording – things to avoid

• Leading questions
• Memory issues
• Social desirability
• Question complexity

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Question wording – other things to think

about
• Missing categories – include ‘other’, ‘don’t
know’ and ‘not applicable’
• Sensitive questions
• Simple language – not technical or slang
• Question ordering
• Open or closed questions?
– Closed question – choice of alternative replies
– Open question – written text (or spoken answers)

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Essentials of good questionnaire

• It should be comparatively short and simple
• The size of the questionnaire should be kept to the
minimum
• Questions should proceed in logical sequence flow
from easy- to –difficult
• Personal and intimate questions should be left out
• Technical terms and vague expressions should be
avoided
• Danger words, catch words or words with emotional
connotations should be avoided
• Caution must also be excised in the use of phrases.
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Type of questions to be avoided

• Leading questions
• Loaded questions
• Ambiguous questions
• Double- barreled questions-two or more
difficult idea
• Long questions
• Double negative questions

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Questionnaire scale
• Carefully designed measurement scale to measure
one or more aspects of individuals or groups attitudes
• More commonly used are:
1. Thurston’s equal appealing interval scale
2. Likert summating scales
3. Guttman’s cumulative scale
4. Osgood’s semantic differential scale

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A Likert scale
• A Likert scale assumes that the
strength/intensity of an attitude is linear, i.e. on
a continuum from strongly agree to strongly
disagree, and makes the assumption that
attitudes can be measured.
• For example, each of the five (or seven)
responses would have a numerical value which
would be used to measure the attitude under
investigation.
• Likert scales typically range from 2 to 10 –
with 3, 5, or, 7 being the most common. 38

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5 point Likert scales

• Frequency: Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely,
Never
• Agreement: Strongly Agree, Agree,
Undecided, Disagree, Strongly Disagree
• Importance: Very Important, important,
Moderately Important, Slightly Important,
Unimportant
• Quality: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Very Poor

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Open and closed questions

(from Oppenheim, 1992)
Strength
OPEN Freedom & spontaneity of
answer
Opportunity to probe
Useful for testing hypothesis
about ideas or awareness
CLOSED Requires little time
No extended writing
Low costs
Easy to process
Make group comparisons
easy
Useful for testing specific
hypothesis
Limitation
Time-consuming
Coding more problematic
More effort from respondents
Loss of spontaneous responses
Bias in answer categories
Sometimes too crude
May irritate respondents
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Pre testing of questionnaires

• A questionnaire should always be pre tested
for validity and reliability before it is used.
– For validity using experts panel (discussion with
experts)
– For reliability using Cronbach’s alpha on a sample
(15-20 sample questionnaires distributed and
analyzed)
• (read more about pre testing of questionnaires)

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Data Collection through observation

• Observation is a method in which a person observes
behaviour to note changes in people or places,
typically as the result of an intervention.
• Observation is most common social sciences. It lets
the researcher describe situations under study using
the five senses.
• In civil engineering researches, case studies may be
critically observed to collect data.

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Data collection through FGD

• A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) is a
qualitative research method and data
collection technique in which a selected group
of people discusses a given topic or issue in-
depth, facilitated by a professional, external
moderator.
• This method serves to solicit participants’
attitudes and perceptions, knowledge and
experiences, and practices, shared in the
course of interaction with different people.
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• The typical size of a focus group discussion is

6 to 12 participants; however, smaller groups
are also fine and informative, giving all
participants enough time and opportunity to
share.
• A group of only 3 to 4 participants is called a
‘mini group’. A general rule of the thumb is
that the more experience and knowledge the
participants have on the given subject, the
smaller the group could be.

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Secondary Data

• Documentary
• Written documents
• Survey based secondary
• Census
• Continuous survey
• Adhoc surveys

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Secondary Data
• Advantages
– Resource requirements
– Unobtrusive
– Quality
– Longitudinal
– Comparative
• Disadvantages
– Might not match your need
– Tie in with RQs
– Aggradations and definitions
– Access?
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Collection of Secondary Data

• Sources of secondary data can be:
• Varied publications (governmental and
international)
• Journals, books, magazines, News papers
reports, Public records, Statistics

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Characteristics of Secondary data

• Secondary data should possess the following
characteristics:
• Reliability of the data-who collect, what were
the source, what was the method, when it was
collected, was there any bias, level of
accuracy?
• Suitability of data
• Adequacy of data

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Issues in documentary research

• Authenticity
– You can’t always believe what you read
• Check – does it make sense / different versions / consistency /
transcribed by many/ circulated via those with interest/ reliable
source
• Credibility
– Is it free from error / distortion
• Representativeness
• Constitute a representative sample of the universe of
documents as they originally existed
– Partial account of one person

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Design of Experiments
DoE

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DoE
• Experiment can be defined as a systematic
procedure carried out under controlled
conditions in order to discover an unknown
effect, to test or establish a hypothesis, or to
illustrate a known effect.
• Experimental design is an efficient method of
optimizing the experimental conditions for
SPE to maximize the amount of useful
information obtained with the minimum
number of experiments.
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• When analyzing a process, experiments are

often used to evaluate which process inputs
have a significant impact on the process
output, and what the target level of those
inputs should be to achieve a desired result
(output).
• Experimental design uses to test and validate
the relationship between and among
experimental variables.

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• Experiments are used to study causal

relationships. You manipulate one or
more independent variables and measure their
effect on one or more dependent variables.
• Correlation means there is a statistical
association between
variables. Causation means that a change in
one variable causes a change in another
variable.

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• Experiments can be designed in many

different ways to collect the required
information which is referred to Design of
Experiments (DOE), Designed
Experiments or Experimental Design.
• Experimental design is the process of carrying
out research in an objective and controlled
fashion so that precision is maximized and
specific conclusions can be drawn regarding a
hypothesis statement. Generally, the purpose
is to establish the effect that a factor or
independent variable has on a dependent
variable. 54

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Parameters to DoE
Important topics germane to experimental
design include
• hypothesis statements,
• experimental control,
• specifying independent and dependent
variables,
• selection and assignment of samples or
participants to conditions,

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• collecting data,
• and selecting valid statistical tests.
Through accurate and precise empirical
measurement and control an experimental
design increases a researcher’s ability to
determine causal relationships and state
causal conclusions.

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Steps in the development of an

experiment
• The researcher must generate a research
question, state a testable hypothesis, determine
how to control variability during the
experimental process, select or develop
intervention conditions, sample from a
population in order to assign them to
experimental conditions, and determine what
empirical measures will be made (and how
data will be recorded).
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There are five key steps in designing an

experiment:
1. Consider your variables and how they are
related
2. Write a specific, testable hypothesis
3. Design experimental treatments to manipulate
your independent variable
4. Assign subjects to groups, either between-
subjects or within-subjects
5. Plan how you will measure your dependent
variable
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• If the experimental design is applied

correctly, then a causal relationship can
be established between the independent
variable and dependent variable(s).

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Initial experimental planning

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• actors are considered to be independent if there

is no relationship between them and dependent
if a relationship exists.
• The values or settings attributed for each factor
are called levels.
• Each experimental run in an experimental
design study requires that one or more
treatments (stimulus applied to one or more
factors) be applied to the system and the
response measured.

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• The experimenter then employs statistical

design methods to determine if the
treatment of interest or combination of
treatments was significant in influencing
the response of the system under study.
• Calculation of the treatment effects can
then be used to identify which variables
lead to an optimal response.

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• Where y is the response of interest in the

system and x are the factors that affect the
response when their values change.
In general, the following types of factors can be
distinguished:
(1) continuous, e.g., temperature; and
(2) discrete, e.g., experimenters.
The number of experiments to be carried out
can be determined as 2n where n is the
number of variables
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Example
• Read the article titled;
Assessment of Punching Shear Strength of
Fiber-reinforced Concrete Flat Slabs Using
Factorial Design of Experiments
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357428695_Assessment_of_Pu
nching_Shear_Strength_of_Fiber-
reinforced_Concrete_Flat_Slabs_Using_Factorial_Design_of_Experiments

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Data analysis and

Interpretation

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Data analysis
• Data analysis depends on the type of data
collected.
1. Qualitative data analysis.
2. Quantitative data analysis.

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Qualitative data analysis

• Qualitative data refers to non-numeric information
such as interview transcripts, notes, video and audio
recordings, images and text documents. Qualitative
data analysis can be divided into the following five
categories:
1. Content analysis. This refers to the process of
categorizing verbal or behavioral data to classify,
summarize and tabulate the data.

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2. Narrative analysis. This method involves the

reformulation of stories presented by
respondents taking into account context of
each case and different experiences of each
respondent. In other words, narrative analysis
is the revision of primary qualitative data by
researcher.
3. Discourse analysis. A method of analysis of
naturally occurring talk and all types of written
text.

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4. Framework analysis. This is more advanced

method that consists of several stages such as
familiarization, identifying a thematic
framework, coding, charting, mapping and
interpretation.
5. Grounded theory. This method of qualitative
data analysis starts with an analysis of a single
case to formulate a theory. Then, additional
cases are examined to see if they contribute to
the theory.

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Quantitative data analysis

1. Nominal: Categorical data where there is no inherent
order to the categories, for example gender.
2. Ordinal: Categorical data where there is a
meaningful order of categories, but there is not a
measurable distance between categories, example
Likert scale.
3. Scale: Data measured on an interval or ratio scale,
where the data values indicate both the order of
values and the distance between values.

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Basic statistics
Measures of Central Tendency of data,
1. the mean,
2. median and
3. mode.
Measures of data dispersion
1. Range,
2. Standard deviation,
3. Variance.

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Crosstabulation
• Crosstabulation tables (contingency tables)
display the relationship between two or more
categorical (nominal or ordinal) variables.
• The size of the table is determined by the
number of distinct values for each variable,
with each cell in the table representing a unique
combination of values.
• Numerous statistical tests are available to
determine whether there is a relationship
between the variables in a table.
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Example 1
• A researcher wants to know if geotechnical
investigation practice is related to the level of
consulting firms. He collects data from a simple
random sample of 164 consulting firms as given
in the table below.
• Research question : How often do you practice
appropriate and adequate geotechnical
investigation for the design of building projects ?
• 1: Never, 2:Rarely, 3: Sometimes, 4: Usually, 5: Always

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Contingency table

Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always total

level 1 0 5 14 14 17 50
level 2 0 6 8 12 10 36
level 3 0 12 10 10 8 40
level 4 0 10 12 10 6 38
total 0 33 44 46 41 164

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Counts vs. Percentages

• Percentage tables gives more insight to the
pattern of data i.e. whether there is some kind
of dependency or not.
Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always total
level 1 0 5 14 14 17 50
% within group 0 10 28 28 34 100
level 2 0 6 8 12 10 36
% within group 0 16.7 22.2 33.3 27.8 100
level 3 0 12 10 10 8 40
% within group 0 30 25 25 20 100
level 4 0 10 12 10 6 38
% within group 0 26.3 31.6 26.3 15.8 100

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Hypothesis Testing
• A hypothesis is a pre statement (a claim) about
a population based on previous data or
experience.
• A hypothesis test is rule that specifies whether
to accept or reject a claim about a population
depending on the evidence provided by a
sample of data.

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The null hypothesis and the alternative

hypothesis
There are two types of hypothesis,
• The null hypothesis is the statement being
tested. Usually the null hypothesis is a
statement of "no effect" or "no difference".
• The alternative hypothesis is the statement to
be concluded true based on evidence provided
by the sample data.

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Null hypothesis (H0)

• The null hypothesis states that a population
parameter (such as the mean, the standard
deviation, and so on) is equal to a
hypothesized value.
• The null hypothesis is often an initial claim
that is based on previous analyses or
specialized knowledge.

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Alternative Hypothesis (H1)

• The alternative hypothesis states that a
population parameter is smaller, greater, or
different than the hypothesized value in the
null hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis is
what you might believe to be true or hope to
prove true.
• The alternative hypothesis can be either one-
sided or two sided.

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Two-sided Hypothesis
• Use a two-sided alternative hypothesis (also
known as a nondirectional hypothesis) to
determine whether the population parameter is
either greater than or less than the
hypothesized value.
• A two-sided test can detect when the
population parameter differs in either
direction, but has less power than a one-sided
test.

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One-sided Hypothesis
• Use a one-sided alternative hypothesis (also
known as a directional hypothesis) to
determine whether the population parameter
differs from the hypothesized value in a
specific direction.
• The direction can be specified to be either
greater than or less than the hypothesized
value. A one-sided test has greater power than
a two-sided test, but it cannot detect whether
the population parameter differs in the
opposite direction. 81

Examples of two-sided and one-sided

hypotheses
A moisture content test on a soil sample done by a lab
technician and resulted a mean value of 26 %.
However, the researcher claimed that the moisture
content is different from 26 %.
Two sided
(H0: μ = 26 vs. H1: μ≠ 26)
One sided
(H0: μ = 26 vs. H1: μ > 26)

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Tests of Hypothesis
• Parametric tests are those that make
assumptions about the parameters of the
population distribution from which the sample
is drawn. This is often the assumption that the
population data are normally distributed.
• Non-parametric tests are “distribution-free”
and, as such, can be used for non-Normal
variables.

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Significance Testing for Crosstabulations

Chi-Square test
• The Chi-Square test is a procedure for testing
if two categorical variables are related in some
population.
• Chi square test is carried out by comparing the
actual value to the expected.

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Example 2
• A researcher wants to know if the level of consulting
firm and geotechnical investigation practice are
related for the building design consulting firms in
Addis Ababa. He collects data on a simple random
sample of n = 164 firms, as given on table below.
Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always total
level 1 1 5 13 14 17 50
level 2 1 6 7 12 10 36
level 3 1 12 9 10 8 40
level 4 1 10 11 10 6 38
total 4 33 40 46 41 164

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Chi-Square Test - Observed Frequencies

• A good first step for these data is inspecting the
contingency table of consulting firm level by
frequency of geotechnical investigation practice.
Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always Total
level 1 1 5 13 14 17 50

% within group 2 10 26 28 34 100

level 2 1 6 7 12 10 36

% within group 2.8 16.7 19.4 33.3 27.8 100

level 3 1 12 9 10 8 40

% within group 2.5 30 22.5 25 20 100

level 4 1 10 11 10 6 38

% within group 2.6 26.3 28.9 26.3 15.8 100

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Chi-Square Test - Stacked Bar Chart

Always

Usually
level 1
Sometimes level 2
level 3
level 4
Rarely

Never

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

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Chi-Square Test - Null Hypothesis

• The null hypothesis for a chi-square
independence test is that; “two categorical
variables are independent in some
population.”
Now, level of consulting firm and geotechnical
investigation practice are related -
thus not independent- in our sample. However,
we can't conclude that this holds for our entire
population. The basic problem is that samples
usually differ from populations.
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• If level of consulting firm and geotechnical

investigation practice are perfectly
independent in our population, we may still
see some relation in our sample by mere
chance.
• However, a strong relation in a large sample is
extremely unlikely and hence refutes our null
hypothesis. In this case we'll conclude that the
variables were not independent in our
population after all.

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• So exactly how strong is this dependence -or

association- in our sample? And what's the
probability -or p-value- of finding it if the
variables are (perfectly) independent in the
entire population?
• Independence means that one variable doesn't
“say anything” about another variable. A different
way of saying the exact same thing is that
independence means that the relative frequencies of
one variable are identical over all levels of some
other variable.

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Expected Frequencies
• The hypothesis of independence tells us which
frequencies we should have found in our sample: the
expected frequencies.
• Expected frequencies are the frequencies we expect in
our sample if the null hypothesis holds.

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Expected Frequencies

level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 total

Never 1.2 0.9 1.0 0.9 4
Rarely 10.1 7.2 8.0 7.6 33
Sometimes 12.2 8.8 9.8 9.3 40
Usually 14.0 10.1 11.2 10.7 46
Always 12.5 9 10 9.5 41
total 50 36 40 38 164

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Residuals
• Insofar as the observed and expected
frequencies differ, our data deviate more from
independence. So how much do they differ?
First off, we subtract each expected frequency
from each observed frequency, resulting in
a residual. That is,

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• For our example, this results in (4 * 5 =) 20

residuals. Larger (absolute) residuals indicate a
larger difference between our data and the null
hypothesis. We basically add up all residuals,
resulting in a single number: the χ2 (pronounce
“chi-square”) test statistic.

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• So χ2 = 10.23 in our sample. This number

summarizes the difference between our data
and our independence hypothesis. Is 10.23 a
large value? What's the probability of finding
this?
• We can calculate the probability of finding the
test statistics by a mere chance in the sample
from its sampling distribution but this
requires a couple of assumptions.

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Chi-Square Test - Degrees of Freedom

We'll get the p-value from the chi-square

distribution if we give it 2 numbers:
• the χ2 value (10.06) and
• the degrees of freedom (df).
• The degrees of freedom is basically a number
that determines the exact shape of our
distribution.

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•The Chi-Square distribution table is a table that

shows the critical values of the Chi-Square
distribution.

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• The following image shows the first 20 rows of the

Chi-Square distribution table, with the degrees of
freedom along the left side of the table and the alpha
levels along the top of the table.
• The critical values within the table are often
compared to the test statistic of a Chi-Square test.

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• If the test statistic is greater than the critical

value found in the table, then you can reject
the null hypothesis of the Chi-Square test and
conclude that the results of the test are
statistically significant.
• Considering a 5 % significance level, the
critical value is 21.026
• Test statistics is less than the critical value
which implies that there is no enough evidence
to reject the null hypothesis.

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101

• And with df = 12, and p 5 % χ2 ≥ 21.06 >10.23

* This is our 1-tailed significance. It basically
means, there's a 0.050 (or 1%) chance of
finding the association in our sample if it is
zero in our population.

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Conclusion: level of consulting firm and

geotechnical investigation practice are not
related in our population.
• Now, keep in mind that our p-value of 0.05
only tells us that the association between our
variables is probably not zero. It doesn't say
anything about the strength of this association:
the effect size.

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Reporting

• For reporting our results in APA style, we may

write like “An association between
consulting firm level and geotechnical
investigation practice is not observed, χ2(12)
= 10.06<21.026, p = 0.05.”

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Parametric tests
Z-Tests and T-Tests
• Z-tests and t-tests are statistical methods
involving hypothesis testing that have
applications in science, engineering, and many
other disciplines on scale data.

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Z-Tests
• Z-test is the statistical test, used to analyze
whether two population means are different
or not when the variances are known and the
sample size is large.
• This test statistic is assumed to have a normal
distribution, and standard deviation must be
known to perform an accurate z-test.

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• For example, the null hypothesis is “sample

mean is the same as the population mean”, and
alternative hypothesis is “the sample mean is
not the same as the population mean”.
• A z-statistic, or z-score, is a number
representing the value’s relationship to the
mean of a group of values, it is measured with
population parameters such as population
standard deviation and used to validate a
hypothesis.

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One-sample Z-test

The z-statistics refers to the statistics computed

for testing hypotheses, such that,
– Given: From normally distributed population, a
random sample of size n is selected with
population mean μ and variance σ2, and
– A sample mean X with sample size is greater than
30.

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111

Steps to follow
1. Define the Null and Alternative Hypothesis
2. State the Alpha
3. State the Decision Rule
4. Calculate the Test Statistic
5. State the Result
6. State conclusion

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Example 2
• The average time overrun of construction projects
due to unexpected soil condition in Addis Ababa city
was estimated to be 15 % of the original agreed
project time with a standard deviation of 8. A
researcher considered 40 contractors and found out
that the average time overrun is rather 17 %.
1. State the null and alternative hypothesis.
2. Can it be claimed that the average time overrun is 15
% at a confidence level of 95 % with the sample
data.

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1. H0: μ = 15
H1: μ≠ 15
2. Z statistics
z

=(17-15)/(8/40^0.5)=1.58
For a 95 % confidence level,
z=1.96
Accept the null hypothesis

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115

Example 3
• The average time overrun of construction projects
due to unexpected soil condition in Gondar city was
estimated to be 16 % of the original agreed project
time with a standard deviation of 7. A researcher
considered 40 contractors and found out that the
average time overrun is rather 22 %.
1. State the null and alternative hypothesis.
2. Can it be claimed that the average time overrun is 22
% at a confidence level of 95 % with the sample
data.

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1. H0: μ = 16
H1: μ≠ 16
2. Z statistics
z

=(22-16)/(7/40^0.5)=5.42
For a 95 % confidence level, z=1.96
Fail to reject the null hypothesis

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Two-sample Z-test
• The above formula is used for one sample z-
test, if you want to run two sample z-test, the
formula for z-statistic is,

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Example 4
• Compare the means of the two samples in example 1
and 2 respectively.
• Is there enough evidence to claim that the time over
run of construction projects due to unexpected soil
condition in Gondar is greater than that of Addis
Ababa?

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H0: μ1 = μ2
H1: μ1≠ μ2

• (17-22)-(15-16)/((8/40+7/40)^0.5)=-6.536
• Reject the null hypothesis

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121

T-test
• In order to know how significant the difference
between two groups are, T-test is used,
basically it tells that difference (measured in
means) between two separate groups could
have occurred by chance.
• This test assumes to have a normal distribution
while based on t-distribution, and population
parameters such as mean, or standard deviation
are unknown.

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• The ratio between the difference between two

groups and the difference within the group is
known as T-score. Greater is the t-score, more
is the difference between groups, and smaller
is the t-score, more similarities are there
among groups.
• For example, a t-score value of 2 indicates that
the groups are two times as different from each
other as they are with each other.

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• Also, after running t-test, if the larger t-

value is obtained, it is highly likely that
the outcomes are more repeatable, such
that
– A larger t-score states that groups are
different.
– A smaller t-score states that groups are
similar.

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One sample T-test

The t-statistics refers to the statistics computed
for hypothesis testing when
– Population variance is unknown with sample size
is smaller than 30.
– Sample standard deviation is used at place of
population standard deviation, and,
– The sample distribution must either be normal or
approximately normal.

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Mainly, there are three types of t-test:

• An Independent Sample t-test, compare the
means for two groups.
• A Paired Sample t-test, compare means from
the same group but at different times, such as
six months apart.
• A One Sample t-test, test a mean of a group
against the known mean.

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Example 5
• The average time overrun of construction projects
due to unexpected soil conditions in Gondar city was
estimated to be 16 % of the originally agreed project
time. A researcher considered 25 contractors and
found out that the average time overrun is rather 22 %
with a standard deviation of 7.
1. State the null and alternative hypotheses.
2. Can it be claimed that the average time overrun is 22
% at a confidence level of 95 % with the sample
data.

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H0: μ1 = 16
H1: μ1≠ 16

= (22-16)/(7/(25^0.5)=3.57
T for alpha =0.05=2.045
3.57>2.045
Reject the null hypothesis.

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Two-sample T-test

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131

P-value
• A p-value is the probability that the outcomes, from
sample data, have occurred by chance, and varies
from 0% to 100%. In general, these values are written
in decimal format, like a p-value of 5% is written as
0.05.
• Lower p-values are considered to be favorable, as
they indicate that data didn’t happen by chance.
• For example, if p-value is 0.01, it means that there is
1% probability that, from an event, the results have
appeared by chance. However, a p-value of 0.05 is
ideally acceptable, signifying that data is valid.

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• Level of significance is the amount of some percentage

that is required to reject a null hypothesis when it is true,
it is denoted by 𝝰 (alpha). In general, alpha is taken as
1%, 5% and 10%.
• Confidence level: (1-𝝰) is accounted as confidence level
in which null hypothesis exists when it is true.
• For instance, assuming the level of significance as 0.05,
then smaller the p-value (generally p≤ 0.05), rejecting the
null hypothesis. As this is a substantial confirmation
against the null hypothesis that proves it is invalid.
• Also, if the p-value is greater than 0.05, accepting the null
hypothesis. As this gives evidence that alternate
hypothesis is weak therefore null hypothesis can be
accepted.
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The p-value is only a piece of information that signifies

the null hypothesis is valid or not. Ideally, following
rules are used in determining whether to support or
reject the null hypothesis;

• If p > 0.10 : the observed difference is “not

significant”
• If p ≤ 0.10 : the observed difference is “marginally
significant”
• If p ≤ 0.05 : the observed difference is “significant”
• If p ≤ 0.01 : the observed difference is “highly
significant.”
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135

• A random sample of 8 observations was drawn

from a normal population. The sample mean
and sample standard deviation are x = 40 and s
= 10.
a. Estimate the population mean with 95%
confidence.
b. Repeat part (a) assuming that you know that
the population standard deviation is 10.
c. Explain why the interval estimate produced in
part (b) is narrower than that in part (a).

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137

Exercise
Design and Analysis of Experiments, by Douglas
C. Montgomery
Page 54
Problems 2.1-2.5

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Correlation & Regression

139

Correlation and regression

• The most commonly used techniques for
investigating the relationship between two
quantitative variables are correlation and linear
regression.
• We could use correlation and regression to
determine whether there is a relationship
between variables, and determine the strength
of the variables.
• When investigating a relationship between two
variables, the first step is to show the data
values graphically on a scatter diagram. 140

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Correlation
• Correlation quantifies the strength of the linear
relationship between a pair of variables.
• On a scatter diagram, the closer the points lie
to a straight line, the stronger the linear
relationship between two variables.

141

• To quantify the strength of the relationship, we

can calculate the correlation coefficient. In
algebraic notation, if we have two variables x
and y, and the data take the form of n pairs (i.e.
[x1, y1], [x2, y2], [x3, y3] ... [xn, yn]), then the
correlation coefficient is given by the
following equation:

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• This is the product moment correlation

coefficient (or Pearson correlation coefficient).
• The value of r always lies between -1 and +1.
• A value of the correlation coefficient close to
+1 indicates a strong positive linear
relationship.
• A value close to -1 indicates a strong negative
linear relationship.
• A value close to 0 indicates no linear
relationship however, there could be a nonlinear
relationship between the variables.
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Regression
• Regression expresses the relationship in the
form of an equation.
• The regression line is obtained using the
method of least squares. Any line y = a + bx
that we draw through the points gives a
predicted or fitted value of y for each value of
x in the data set.

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• The method of least squares finds the values

of “a” and “b” that minimise the sum of the
squares of all the deviations. This gives the
following formulae for calculating a and b.

145

Validation
• Validation is a very important procedure
particularly in researches that involve
modeling and simulation.
• Analysis results gained through modeling and
simulation should be validated to check if the
results are compatible to actual values.

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Validation can be done through:

• Experiment: Model outputs can be checked
with experimental results easily and ore
accurately.
• Literature : Sometimes experiments may not
be feasible due to a number of limitations
including budget and time. In such cases,
literature may be referred to validate model
outputs.

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Data interpretation
• Data interpretation is the process of assigning
meaning to the collected information and
determining the conclusions, significance, and
implications of the findings. The goal of the
interpretation of data is to highlight useful
information and suggest conclusions.

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• Visualization: One of the best practices of

data interpretation is the visualization of the
dataset. Visualization makes it easy for a
layman to understand the data, and also
encourages people to view the data, as it
provides a visually appealing summary of the
data.
• Develop your findings
• Derive Conclusions
• Give recommendations

149

Thank you!

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