What Is the Importance of Data Analysis in Research?

A huge part of a researcher’s job is to sift through data. That is literally the definition of
“research.” However, today’s Information Age routinely produces a tidal wave of data, enough
to overwhelm even the most dedicated researcher.

Data analysis, therefore, plays a key role in distilling this information into a more accurate and
relevant form, making it easier for researchers to do to their job.

Data analysis also provides researchers with a vast selection of different tools, such as
descriptive statistics, inferential analysis, and quantitative analysis.

So, to sum it up, data analysis offers researchers better data and better ways to analyze and study
said data.

What is Data Analysis: Types of Data Analysis

There are a half-dozen popular types of data analysis available today, commonly employed in the
worlds of technology and business. They are: 

 Diagnostic Analysis: Diagnostic analysis answers the question, “Why did this happen?” Using insights
gained from statistical analysis (more on that later!), analysts use diagnostic analysis to identify
patterns in data. Ideally, the analysts find similar patterns that existed in the past, and consequently,
use those solutions to resolve the present challenges hopefully.

 Predictive Analysis: Predictive analysis answers the question, “What is most likely to happen?” By
using patterns found in older data as well as current events, analysts predict future events. While
there’s no such thing as 100 percent accurate forecasting, the odds improve if the analysts have
plenty of detailed information and the discipline to research it thoroughly.

 Prescriptive Analysis: Mix all the insights gained from the other data analysis types, and you have
prescriptive analysis. Sometimes, an issue can’t be solved solely with one analysis type, and instead
requires multiple insights.

 Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis answers the question, “What happened?” This analysis covers
data collection, analysis, modeling, interpretation, and presentation using dashboards. The statistical
analysis breaks down into two sub-categories:
1. Descriptive: Descriptive analysis works with either complete or selections of summarized numerical
data. It illustrates means and deviations in continuous data and percentages and frequencies in
categorical data.

2. Inferential: Inferential analysis works with samples derived from complete data. An analyst can arrive
at different conclusions from the same comprehensive data set just by choosing different samplings.

 Text Analysis: Also called “data mining,” text analysis uses databases and data mining tools to
discover patterns residing in large datasets. It transforms raw data into useful business information.
Text analysis is arguably the most straightforward and the most direct method of data analysis.

Next, we will get into the depths to understand about the data analysis methods.

Businesses today need every edge and advantage they can get. Thanks to obstacles
like rapidly changing markets, economic uncertainty, shifting political landscapes, finicky
consumer attitudes, and even global pandemics, businesses today are working with
slimmer margins for error.

Companies that want to not only stay in business but also thrive can improve their odds
of success by making smart choices while answering the question: “What is data
analysis?” And how does an individual or organization make these choices? They do it
by collecting as much useful, actionable information as possible, then using it to make
better-informed decisions!

This strategy is common sense, and it applies to personal life as well as business. No
one makes important decisions without first finding out what’s at stake, the pros and
cons, and the possible outcomes. Similarly, no company that wants to succeed should
make decisions based on bad data. Organizations need information; they need data.
This is where data analysis enters the picture.

Now, before getting into the details about the data analysis methods, let us first
understand what data analysis is.

What Is Data Analysis?

Although many groups, organizations, and experts have different ways to approach data analysis,
most of them can be distilled into a one-size-fits-all definition. Data analysis is the process of
cleaning, changing, and processing raw data, and extracting actionable, relevant information that
helps businesses make informed decisions. The procedure helps reduce the risks inherent in
decision-making by providing useful insights and statistics, often presented in charts, images,
tables, and graphs.
A simple example of data analysis can be seen whenever we take a decision in our daily lives by
evaluating what has happened in the past or what will happen if we make that decision.
Basically, this is the process of analyzing the past or future and making a decision based on that
analysis.

It’s not uncommon to hear the term “big data” brought up in discussions about data analysis.
Data analysis plays a crucial role in processing big data into useful information. Neophyte data
analysts who want to dig deeper by revisiting big data fundamentals should go back to the basic
question, “What is data?”

Why is Data Analysis Important?

Here is a list of reasons why data analysis is such a crucial part of doing business today.

 Better Customer Targeting: You don’t want to waste your business’s precious time, resources, and
money putting together advertising campaigns targeted at demographic groups that have little to no
interest in the goods and services you offer. Data analysis helps you see where you should be
focusing your advertising efforts.

 You Will Know Your Target Customers Better: Data analysis tracks how well your products and
campaigns are performing within your target demographic. Through data analysis, your business can
get a better idea of your target audience’s spending habits, disposable income, and most likely areas
of interest. This data helps businesses set prices, determine the length of ad campaigns, and even
help project the quantity of goods needed.

 Reduce Operational Costs: Data analysis shows you which areas in your business need more
resources and money, and which areas are not producing and thus should be scaled back or
eliminated outright.

 Better Problem-Solving Methods: Informed decisions are more likely to be successful decisions. Data
provides businesses with information. You can see where this progression is leading. Data analysis
helps businesses make the right choices and avoid costly pitfalls.

 You Get More Accurate Data: If you want to make informed decisions, you need data, but there’s
more to it. The data in question must be accurate. Data analysis helps businesses acquire relevant,
accurate information, suitable for developing future marketing strategies, business plans, and
realigning the company’s vision or mission.

What Is the Data Analysis Process?

Answering the question “what is data analysis” is only the first step. Now we will look at how
it’s performed. The data analysis process, or alternately, data analysis steps, involves gathering
all the information, processing it, exploring the data, and using it to find patterns and other
insights. The process consists of:

 Data Requirement Gathering: Ask yourself why you’re doing this analysis, what type of data analysis
you want to use, and what data you are planning on analyzing.

 Data Collection: Guided by the requirements you’ve identified, it’s time to collect the data from your
sources. Sources include case studies, surveys, interviews, questionnaires, direct observation, and
focus groups. Make sure to organize the collected data for analysis.

 Data Cleaning: Not all of the data you collect will be useful, so it’s time to clean it up. This process is
where you remove white spaces, duplicate records, and basic errors. Data cleaning is mandatory
before sending the information on for analysis.

 Data Analysis: Here is where you use data analysis software and other tools to help you interpret and
understand the data and arrive at conclusions. Data analysis tools include Excel, Python, R, Looker,
Rapid Miner, Chartio, Metabase, Redash, and Microsoft Power BI.

 Data Interpretation: Now that you have your results, you need to interpret them and come up with
the best courses of action, based on your findings.

 Data Visualization: Data visualization is a fancy way of saying, “graphically show your information in a
way that people can read and understand it.” You can use charts, graphs, maps, bullet points, or a
host of other methods. Visualization helps you derive valuable insights by helping you compare
datasets and observe relationships.

Definition of research in data analysis: According

to LeCompte and Schensul, research data analysis is a process used by
researchers for reducing data to a story and interpreting it to derive insights.
The data analysis process helps in reducing a large chunk of data into smaller
fragments, which makes sense. 

Three essential things take place during the data analysis process — the first
data organization. Summarization and categorization together contribute to
becoming the second known method used for data reduction. It helps in
finding patterns and themes in the data for easy identification and linking.
Third and the last way is data analysis – researchers do it in both top-down or
bottom-up fashion.

Marshall and Rossman, on the other hand, describe data analysis as a

messy, ambiguous, and time-consuming, but a creative and fascinating
process through which a mass of collected data is being brought to order,
structure and meaning.
 We can say that “the data analysis and data interpretation is a process
representing the application of deductive and inductive logic to the research
and data analysis.”

Why analyze data in research?

Researchers rely heavily on data as they have a story to tell or problems to
solve. It starts with a question, and data is nothing but an answer to that
question. But, what if there is no question to ask? Well! It is possible to
explore data even without a problem – we call it ‘Data Mining’ which often
reveal some interesting patterns within the data that are worth exploring.

Irrelevant to the type of data, researchers explore, their mission, and

audiences’ vision guide them to find the patterns to shape the story they want
to tell. One of the essential things expected from researchers while analyzing
data is to stay open and remain unbiased towards unexpected patterns,
expressions, and results. Remember, sometimes, data analysis tells the most
unforeseen yet exciting stories that were not expected at the time of initiating
data analysis. Therefore, rely on the data you have at hand and enjoy the
journey of exploratory research. 

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Types of data in research

Every kind of data has a rare quality of describing things after assigning a
specific value to it. For analysis, you need to organize these values,
processed and presented in a given context, to make it useful. Data can be in
different forms; here are the primary data types.

 Qualitative data: When the data presented has words and descriptions,

then we call it qualitative data. Although you can observe this data, it is
subjective and harder to analyze data in research, especially for
comparison. Example: Quality data represents everything describing taste,
experience, texture, or an opinion that is considered quality data. This type
of data is usually collected through focus groups, personal qualitative
interviews, or using open-ended questions in surveys.
 Quantitative data: Any data expressed in numbers of numerical figures are
called quantitative data. This type of data can be distinguished into
categories, grouped, measured, calculated, or ranked. Example: questions
 such as age, rank, cost, length, weight, scores, etc. everything comes under
this type of data. You can present such data in graphical format, charts, or
apply statistical analysis methods to this data. The (Outcomes
Measurement Systems) OMS questionnaires in surveys are a significant
source of collecting numeric data.
 Categorical data: It is data presented in groups. However, an item included
in the categorical data cannot belong to more than one group. Example: A
person responding to a survey by telling his living style, marital status,
smoking habit, or drinking habit comes under the categorical data. A chi-
square test is a standard method used to analyze this data.
Data analysis in qualitative research
Data analysis and qualitative data research work a little differently from the
numerical data as the quality data is made up of words, descriptions, images,
objects, and sometimes symbols. Getting insight from such complicated
information is a complicated process. Hence it is typically used for exploratory
research and data analysis.

Finding patterns in the qualitative data

Although there are several ways to find patterns in the textual information, a
word-based method is the most relied and widely used global technique for
research and data analysis. Notably, the data analysis process in qualitative
research is manual. Here the researchers usually read the available data and
find repetitive or commonly used words. 

For example, while studying data collected from African countries to

understand the most pressing issues people face, researchers might
find “food” and “hunger” are the most commonly used words and will highlight
them for further analysis.

The keyword context is another widely used word-based technique. In this

method, the researcher tries to understand the concept by analyzing the
context in which the participants use a particular keyword.  

For example, researchers conducting research and data analysis for studying
the concept of ‘diabetes’ amongst respondents might analyze the context of
when and how the respondent has used or referred to the word ‘diabetes.’

The scrutiny-based technique is also one of the highly recommended text

analysis methods used to identify a quality data pattern. Compare and
 contrast is the widely used method under this technique to differentiate how a
specific text is similar or different from each other. 

For example: To find out the “importance of resident doctor in a company,”

the collected data is divided into people who think it is necessary to hire a
resident doctor and those who think it is unnecessary. Compare and contrast
is the best method that can be used to analyze the polls having single answer
questions types.

Metaphors can be used to reduce the data pile and find patterns in it so that it
becomes easier to connect data with theory.

Variable Partitioning is another technique used to split variables so that

researchers can find more coherent descriptions and explanations from the
enormous data.

Methods used for data analysis in qualitative research

There are several techniques to analyze the data in qualitative research, but
here are some commonly used methods,

 Content Analysis: It is widely accepted and the most frequently employed

technique for data analysis in research methodology. It can be used to
analyze the documented information from text, images, and sometimes from
the physical items. It depends on the research questions to predict when
and where to use this method.
 Narrative Analysis: This method is used to analyze content gathered from
various sources such as personal interviews, field observation,
and surveys. The majority of times, stories, or opinions shared by people
are focused on finding answers to the research questions.
 Discourse Analysis: Similar to narrative analysis, discourse analysis is
used to analyze the interactions with people. Nevertheless, this particular
method considers the social context under which or within which the
communication between the researcher and respondent takes place. In
addition to that, discourse analysis also focuses on the lifestyle and day-to-
day environment while deriving any conclusion.
 Grounded Theory: When you want to explain why a particular
phenomenon happened, then using grounded theory for analyzing quality
data is the best resort. Grounded theory is applied to study data about the
host of similar cases occurring in different settings. When researchers are
 using this method, they might alter explanations or produce new ones until
they arrive at some conclusion.
 

Data analysis in quantitative research

Preparing data for analysis
The first stage in research and data analysis is to make it for the analysis so
that the nominal data can be converted into something meaningful. Data
preparation consists of the below phases.

Phase I: Data Validation

Data validation is done to understand if the collected data sample is per the
pre-set standards, or it is a biased data sample again divided into four
different stages

 Fraud: To ensure an actual human being records each response to the

survey or the questionnaire
 Screening: To make sure each participant or respondent is selected or
chosen in compliance with the research criteria
 Procedure: To ensure ethical standards were maintained while collecting
the data sample
 Completeness: To ensure that the respondent has answered all the
questions in an online survey. Else, the interviewer had asked all the
questions devised in the questionnaire.
Phase II: Data Editing
More often, an extensive research data sample comes loaded with errors.
Respondents sometimes fill in some fields incorrectly or sometimes skip them
accidentally. Data editing is a process wherein the researchers have to
confirm that the provided data is free of such errors. They need to conduct
necessary checks and outlier checks to edit the raw edit and make it ready for
analysis.

Phase III: Data Coding

Out of all three, this is the most critical phase of data preparation associated
with grouping and assigning values to the survey responses. If a survey is
completed with a 1000 sample size, the researcher will create an age bracket
 to distinguish the respondents based on their age. Thus, it becomes easier to
analyze small data buckets rather than deal with the massive data pile.

Methods used for data analysis in quantitative research

After the data is prepared for analysis, researchers are open to using different
research and data analysis methods to derive meaningful insights. For sure,
statistical techniques are the most favored to analyze numerical data. The
method is again classified into two groups. First, ‘Descriptive Statistics’ used
to describe data. Second, ‘Inferential statistics’ that helps in comparing the
data.

Descriptive statistics
This method is used to describe the basic features of versatile types of data in
research. It presents the data in such a meaningful way that pattern in the
data starts making sense. Nevertheless, the descriptive analysis does not go
beyond making conclusions. The conclusions are again based on the
hypothesis researchers have formulated so far. Here are a few major types of
descriptive analysis methods.

Measures of Frequency
 Count, Percent, Frequency
 It is used to denote home often a particular event occurs.
 Researchers use it when they want to showcase how often a response is
given.
Measures of Central Tendency
 Mean, Median, Mode
 The method is widely used to demonstrate distribution by various points.
 Researchers use this method when they want to showcase the most
commonly or averagely indicated response.
Measures of Dispersion or Variation
 Range, Variance, Standard deviation
 Here the field equals high/low points.
 Variance standard deviation = difference between the observed score and
mean
 It is used to identify the spread of scores by stating intervals.
 Researchers use this method to showcase data spread out. It helps them
identify the depth until which the data is spread out that it directly affects the
mean.
 Measures of Position
 Percentile ranks, Quartile ranks
 It relies on standardized scores helping researchers to identify the
relationship between different scores.
 It is often used when researchers want to compare scores with the average
count.
For quantitative market research use of descriptive analysis often give
absolute numbers, but the analysis is never sufficient to demonstrate the
rationale behind those numbers. Nevertheless, it is necessary to think of the
best method for research and data analysis suiting your survey questionnaire
and what story researchers want to tell. For example, the mean is the best
way to demonstrate the students’ average scores in schools. It is better to rely
on the descriptive statistics when the researchers intend to keep the research
or outcome limited to the provided sample without generalizing it. For
example, when you want to compare average voting done in two different
cities, differential statistics are enough.

Descriptive analysis is also called a ‘univariate analysis’ since it is commonly

used to analyze a single variable.

Inferential statistics
Inferential statistics are used to make predictions about a larger population
after research and data analysis of the representing population’s collected
sample. For example, you can ask some odd 100 audiences at a movie
theater if they like the movie they are watching. Researchers then use
inferential statistics on the collected sample to reason that about 80-90% of
people like the movie. 

Here are two significant areas of inferential statistics.

 Estimating parameters: It takes statistics from the sample research data and
demonstrates something about the population parameter.
 Hypothesis test: It’s about sampling research data to answer the survey
research questions. For example, researchers might be interested to
understand if the new shade of lipstick recently launched is good or not, or if
the multivitamin capsules help children to perform better at games.
These are sophisticated analysis methods used to showcase the relationship
between different variables instead of describing a single variable. It is often
used when researchers want something beyond absolute numbers to
understand the relationship between variables.
 Here are some of the commonly used methods for data analysis in research.

 Correlation: When researchers are not conducting experimental

research or quasi-experimental research wherein the researchers are
interested to understand the relationship between two or more variables,
they opt for correlational research methods.
 Cross-tabulation: Also called contingency tables, cross-tabulation is used
to analyze the relationship between multiple variables.  Suppose provided
data has age and gender categories presented in rows and columns. A two-
dimensional cross-tabulation helps for seamless data analysis and research
by showing the number of males and females in each age category.

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