Quantitative

Techniques
Dr. Asif Nawaz
• Recommended Books:

• Hair, Mary, Money, Samouel, Page (2016). Essentials of Business Research

Methods (3rd Ed.). Routledge.
• Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. . (2010). Multivariate data
analysis (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River: NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Pallant, Julie. (2011). Spss survival manaul: A step by step guide to data
analysis using spss for windows 4rth edition. Berkshire, UK: Open University
Press: McGraw-Hill Education.
• Field, (2013) Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (4th Ed.). Sage
• Tabachnick, B.G., & Fidell, L.S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5 ed.).
Boston: Pearson Education.
• Hair, Hult, Ringle, Sarstedt. (2016) A premier on partial least squares structural
equation modeling (PLS-SEM) (2nd Ed.). Sage
• Census
• Researchers prefer to collect data from all members of a
population under investigation
Sample

• Is a relatively small subset of the

population.

• It is drawn using either probability or

non-probability procedures.
 Whether a probability of non-probability is used

But careful consideration of

sampling design issues is necessary
in selecting the sample.
• Probability Sampling is typically used in
quantitative research

• Selection of representative sample from the population using

a random procedure to ensure objectivity in selecting the
sample.

• The findings from the sample data then can be generalized to

the population with a specified degree of accuracy.
• Non-probability sampling is typically used in
qualitative research

• Judgment is used to select the sample in qualitative research.

• Findings from the sample can be used to describe, discover,
and develop theory.
• While the findings can be used to generalize to the population,
it cannot be done with a specified degree of accuracy.
• Sample size is an important consideration in both
qualitative and quantitative research

• To generalize to the population a sufficiently large

sample is required.

• In contrast, when using a qualitative approach to

develop theory on organizational behavior a small
number of cases may be sufficient.
Sampling
• Is part of basic research process. It involves
answering following questions:

1) Should a sample or a census be used?

2) If a sample, then which sampling approach is best?
3) And, how large a sample is necessary?

Objective is to minimize sampling error

• We collect information for decision making
therefore we need to involve those people who
are knowledgeable.

• We refer to the group of knowledgeable people as Population

or universe.

• A population is thus a total of all the elements that share a

common characteristics.
• E.g people, supermarkets, hospitals
• In probability sampling researchers are able
at a minimum to calculate the error associated
with a particular sampling design and can make
decisions with this knowledge in hand.
• In non-probability sampling researchers are
not able to calculate the error but have made
informed judgments in an effort to obtain usable
sample information.
Remember, a sample must be representative of
the population from which it is drawn.

Only, use of an appropriate sampling design can

achieve this objective.
The sampling process
1. Defining the target population
2. Choosing the sampling frame
3. Selecting the sampling method
4. Implementing the sampling plan
1. Defining the target population

The research objectives and scope of the study are critical in

defining the target population.

Target population is complete group of objects or elements

relevant to the research project.

Elements or objects available for selection during the sampling

process are known as sampling unit (people, households,
businesses, or any logically unit relevant to the study’s objectives).
• Element Employees with incentive pay
• Sampling unit customer service representatives and branch managers
• Extent All branch locations in Sindh province
• Time March 2011
2. Choosing the sampling frame

Provides a working definition of the target population.

Sampling frame is a comprehensive list of the elements

from which the sample is drawn.
Eg. Yellow pages listing of restaurants, a telephone
directory, company’s internal database, electronic
directories.
Ideally, a sampling frame is an accurate,
complete listing of all the elements in the
population targeted by the research.
In reality, sampling frame is often
flawed in a number of ways:
1. It may not be up-to-date
2. It may include elements that do not belong to
the target population
3. It may not include elements that do belong to
the target population
4. It may have been compiled from multiple lists
and contain duplicate elements as a result of
the manner in which the list was constructed.
 What’s the point!
Before drawing a sample from the sampling frame
list, the researcher must therefore confirm the
list’s accuracy irrespective of its origin.
3. Selecting sampling method
• Depends on number of theoretical and practical
issues. They include:
• Considering the nature of the study
• The objectives of the study
• And the time and budget availability
 Sampling Methods
Probability Non-
probability
• Simple random Convenience
• Systematic Judgment
• Stratified Snowball/Referral
• Cluster Quota
• Multistage
1) Simple random:
 is a straightforward
 Assigns each element of target population an equal probability of
being selected.
 Drawing names from a hat
 Easy (drawing names from hat) with a small population
 Large target population; other approaches are necessary

 One example of simple random sampling is random digital

dialing in a telephone survey
 Issues: nonworking numbers, refusal to answer a telephone, lack
of time/interest etc
Procedure for drawing large samples
1. Sequentially assign a unique identification
number to each element in the sampling frame
2. Use a random number generator to identify the
appropriate elements to be selected in the
sample
3. Ensure that no element is selected more than
once.
2) Systematic sampling

Involves selecting an initial starting point on a list,

and thereafter every nth element in the sampling
frame is selected.

Suppose, you have a list of 10,000 students

attending a particular university and you want a
sample of 500 students.
• Your sampling objective is a representative cross-
section of the student body.

• To draw the sample you must determine the sample

size and then calculate the sampling interval.

• Sampling interval is the number of population

elements between each unit selected for your
sample.
 • In this case, the sampling interval is 20
(10,000 students / sample of 500 = 20)

7, 27,47,67 and so on.

Systematic sampling produces representative
data if executed properly.
• To work properly, the sampling interval must
divide the sampling frame into relatively
homogeneous groups, if there is a cyclic
sequence to the sampling frame instead of
a random sequence, systematic sampling
will not work.
• For instance, Alphabetical listings are considered
random not cyclic.

• In contrast, if we wanted to do weekly interviews

with our customers and our interval was 7, the
sample would produce biased information, because
we would always interview on the same day of
the week. To be truly random, we must conduct
interviews across at least several different days of
the week.
• Lets say, if our list of customers is 1030 arranged
according to frequency of dinning, and the first 100
names on the list eat at our restaurant at least once a
week and the remaining 930 eat at our restaurant an
average of four times a year, we would have a
problem using systematic sampling.
• If the sampling interval is 10 and our sample size is
103, then our sample may underrepresent the
frequent customers (only 10 frequent customers) and
overrepresent the less frequent customers (93
nonfrequent customers)
 Thus, we must know ahead of time if there are
underlying systematic patterns in the data so we
can account for them in our sampling plan.
 3) Stratified sampling
Requires the research to partition the sampling
frame into relatively homogeneous subgroups
that are distinct and nonoverlapping, called
strata.
• The researcher usually does the stratification on the
basis of some predetermined criteria that may be the
result of his/her past experience, or stratification
could even be specified by the client.

• In restaurant example, the researcher may wish to

stratify customers on the basis of characteristics such
as age, marital status, family size, income level,
frequency of eating out, level of satisfaction, who
selected the restaurant, or a combination of these.
• The researcher determines the total sample size
as well as the required sample sizes for each of
individual strata.
• For example, total sample size might be 400 and
the four individual strata might each have a
sample size of 100.
• The stratified sample is the composite of the
samples taken from the strata.
• Elements for the stratified sample are usually
selected either by drawing simple random or
systematic samples of the specified size from the
strata of the target population.
• With stratified sampling, elements must be
selected from all the strata of the total sample.
• Practically, stratified sample is
selected in one of two ways;
Proportionately or
disproportionately.
• In Proportionately stratified sampling, the
overall sample size will be the total of all the
elements from each of the strata.
• The number of elements chosen from each
stratum is proportionate to the size of a
particular stratum relative to the overall sample
size.
• So if we have a stratum that is 25 percent of the
target population, then the size of the sample for
that stratum will be 25 percent of the total
sample.
• For example, if we use proportionately stratified
sampling to select a sample of males and
females at IBA with 10,000 student, and 6,000
students are females and 4,000 students are
males, then the overall sample would include 60
percent females and 40 percent males.
• In disproportionately stratified sampling the
sample elements are chosen in one of the two
ways;
• One approach involves choosing the elements
from each stratum according to its relative
importance.
• Relative importance is usually based on practical
considerations such as economic importance of
the various strata.
• For example, if that restaurant is located in an
area dominated by older individuals who dine
out less frequently, then sampling a high
proportion of younger customers that dine out
more often would be viewed as more important
to him.
• With disproportionately stratified sampling based
on economic or other reasons, the sample size
from each stratum is determined independently
without considering the size of the stratum
relative to the overall sample size.
• The more important a particular stratum is
considered, the higher will be the proportion of
the sample elements from the stratum.
• Another approach to selecting a disproportionately
stratified sample considers the variability of the
data within each stratum.
• Elements from each stratum are selected based on
the relative variability of the elements.
• Strata with high relative variability will contribute a
higher proportion of elements to the sample.
Similarly, lower the variability of a stratum the lower
will be its proportional representation in the total
sample.
• For example, assume IBA with 10,000 students has 50 percent male
students and 50 percent female students. We know that almost all
the male drink beer, and there is wide variation in beer drinking
habits, with some drinking beer every day and a very small number
not drinking beer at all.
• On the other hand, only a small proportion of the female students
drink beer and not very often (they prefer fresh juices), so there is
not much variation in their beer consumption patterns.
• In this example, we would sample a larger number of male students
in our survey so we could more accurately represent male beer
consumption patterns, Since female students do not vary much in
their beer consumption habits, the smaller sample of females
should still accurately represent their behavior.
4) Cluster sampling
• In cluster sampling, the target population is
viewed as being made up of heterogeneous
groups,
• Examples of cluster are ethnic groups,
companies, households, business units, and
geographic areas.
• the most frequently used type of cluster sampling is
geographic area sampling.
• For example, assume you want to interview managers of
banks in Sindh province.
• The research could obtain a list of zip codes in which banks
are located: each area is then a cluster.
• The cluster to be sampled would be randomly selected, and
then all bank managers or a random sample of managers of
banks would be interviewed in each of the selected clusters.
• This process generally works well with and produces
representative data.
Cluster sampling procedure
1. Define the cluster characteristics in a way that ensures clusters are
unambiguously identified in the target population. In this manner,
the total number of clusters in the population will be known ahead of
time.
2. Decide on how many clusters to sample.
3. Choose the cluster(s) in a random manner
4. Obtain a sampling frame for the chosen clusters
5. Decide whether to conduct a census on the chosen cluster(s) or
whether to take a probability sample from the cluster(s).
6. If a probability sample is desired, determine the total sample size. If
more than one cluster will be used, then the sample size should be
allocated appropriately. This is generally done on proportionate
sampling basis.
5) Multistage sampling
• Involves a sequence of stages.
• These stages are illustrated by the following example.
• The problem is to investigate the views of medical practitioners
in the US concerning the use of medical software to assist in
patient diagnosis. The first stage is to select a random sample
of regions in the US. The regions are clusters. The Second
stage is to select a random sample of hospitals from the
selected regions, and then either collect information from all
medical practitioners from the chosen hospitals or a random
sample from within each of the chosen hospitals.
• Even more complex multistage sampling is possible.
 Determining sample size

Efficient sample sizes can be drawn from either large (infinite) populations or small (finite) populations.
Sampling from a large population
Researchers often need to estimate
characteristics of large populations. To achieve
this in an efficient manner, it is necessary to
determine the appropriate sample size prior to
data collection.
• Determining sample size is complex because of many
factors that need to be taken into account
simultaneously.
• Challenge is to obtain acceptable balance among
several of these factors. These factors include:
• the variability of elements in the target population,
• The type of sample required,
• Time availability,
• Budget
• Required estimation precision,
• And whether the findings are to be generalized and, if so, with what
degree of confidence.
What is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ data?
• You must understand how SPSS works and how to talk
to it appropriately.
Pre-testing (Refer Hunt et al., 1982)
• What items?
• Length, layout, format, number of lines for replies,
sequencing
• Individual questions, respondents hesitate

• What method?
• Personal interviews, phone, and email
• Debriefing (after) or protocol (during)?
Pre-testing (Continued……)

• Who should do?

• Best interviewers
• Who are the subjects?
• Respondents who are similar as possible
• Representative vs convenience
• How large a sample?
• Vary from 12, 20, 30 to 100
Remember, then comes
pilot-test.
A recent reflection by Joe F. Hair
•Remember, Research design
has implications for the quality
of the data collected and
analysed.
• The data you enter must come from
somewhere—responses to a questionnaire,
information collected from interviews,
coded observations of actual behaviour, or
objective measurements of output or
performance.
• The data are only as good as the
instrument that you used to
collect them and the research
framework that guided their
collection.
• From
• Review of the literature,
• Formulation of hypotheses,
• Choice of study design,
• Selection and allocation of participants,
• Recording of observations and collection of data.

• Decisions made at each of these stages can affect the

quality of the data you have to analyse and the way you
address your research questions.
• In designing your own study I
would recommend that you take
your time working through the
design process to make it the best
study that you can produce.
• Reading a variety of texts on the topic
will help
A few tips
are here…..!
1.
• Consider what type of research design (e.g.
experiment, survey, observation) is the best way to
address your research question.

• There are advantages and disadvantages to all types of

research approaches; choose the most appropriate
approach for your particular research question. Have a
good understanding of the research that has
already been conducted in your topic area.
2.
• If you choose to use an experiment, decide whether a
between-groups design (different cases in each
experimental condition) or a repeated measures
design (same cases tested under all conditions) is the
more appropriate for your research question.
• There are advantages and disadvantages to each
approach (see Stangor 2006), so weigh up each
approach carefully.
• In experimental studies, make sure you include enough
levels in your independent variable. Using only two
levels (or groups) means fewer participants are
required, but it limits the conclusions that you can draw.
• Is a control group necessary or desirable? Will the lack
of control group limit the conclusions that you can
draw?
3.
• Always select more participants than you need,
particularly if you are using a sample of humans.

• People are notoriously unreliable—they don’t turn up

when they are supposed to, they get sick, drop out and
don’t fill out questionnaires properly! So plan
accordingly. Err on the side of pessimism rather than
optimism.
4.
• In experimental studies, check that you have enough
participants in each of your groups (and try to keep
them equal when possible). With small groups, it is
difficult to detect statistically significant differences
between groups (an issue of power).
• There are calculations you can perform to determine the
sample size that you will need. See, for example,
Stangor (2006), or consult other statistical texts (we will
discuss in detail later in the course).
• Wherever possible, randomly assign participants to
each of your experimental conditions, rather than using
existing groups.
• This reduces the problem associated with non-
equivalent groups in between-groups designs.
• Also worth considering is taking additional
measurements of the groups to ensure that they don’t
differ substantially from one another.
• You may be able to statistically control for differences
that you identify (e.g. using analysis of covariance).
• Choose appropriate dependent variables that are valid
and reliable. It is a good idea to include a number of
different measures—some measures are more sensitive
than others.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
• Try to anticipate the possible influence of extraneous or
confounding variables. These are variables that could provide an
alternative explanation for your results.
• Sometimes they are hard to spot when you are immersed in
designing the study yourself. Always have someone else
(supervisor, fellow researcher) check over your design before
conducting the study. Do whatever you can to control for these
potential confounding variables.
• Knowing your topic area well can also help you identify possible
confounding variables. If there are additional variables that you
cannot control, can you measure them? By measuring them, you
may be able to control for them statistically (e.g. using analysis of
covariance).
• If you are distributing a survey, pilot-test it first to
ensure that the instructions, questions and scale items
are clear.
• Wherever possible, pilot-test on the same type of people
who will be used in the main study (e.g. adolescents,
unemployed youth, prison inmates). You need to ensure
that your respondents can understand the survey or
questionnaire items and respond appropriately.
• Pilot-testing should also pick up any questions or items
that may offend potential respondents.
• If you are conducting an experiment, it is a good idea to
have a full dress rehearsal and to pilot-test both the
experimental manipulation and the dependent
measures you intend to use.
• If you are using equipment, make sure it works properly.
If you are using different experimenters or interviewers,
make sure they are properly trained and know what to
do. If different observers are required to rate
behaviours, make sure they know how to appropriately
code what they see.
• Have a practice run and check for inter-rater reliability
(i.e. how consistent scores are from different raters).
Pilot-testing of the procedures and measures helps you
identify anything that might go wrong on the day and
any additional contaminating factors that might
influence the results. Some of these you may not be
able to predict (e.g. workers doing noisy construction
work just outside the lab’s window), but try to control
those factors that you can.
CHOOSING APPROPRIATE
SCALES AND MEASURES
• Many different ways of collecting ‘data’,
• depending on the nature of your research.
• This might involve measuring output or performance on
some objective criteria, or rating behaviour according to
a set of specified criteria.
• use of scales that have been designed to
‘operationalise’ some underlying construct or attribute
that is not directly measurable (e.g. self-esteem).
• Thousands of validated scales are available for research
use
•How do you find the right
measure for research
your purpose?
• A thorough review of the literature in your topic area is the first
place to start.
• What measures have been used by other researchers in the area?
• Sometimes the actual items that make up the scales are included in
the appendix to a journal article; otherwise you may need to trace
back to the original article describing the design and validation of the
scale you are interested in.
• Some scales have been copyrighted, you need to purchase ‘official’
copies from the publisher.
• Other scales, which have been published in their entirety in journal
articles, are considered to be ‘in the public domain’.
• Acknowledgement is a must.
• In choosing appropriate scales there are two characteristics that you
need to be aware of:
• reliability and validity.
• Both of these factors can influence the quality of the data you obtain.
• When reviewing possible scales to use find out reliable and valid
scales.
• But, it is also important to pre and pilot-test them with your intended
sample.
• Sometimes scales are reliable with some groups (e.g. adults with an
English-speaking background), but are totally unreliable when used
with other groups (e.g. children from non-Englishspeaking
backgrounds).
PREPARING A QUESTIONNAIRE
• A poorly planned and designed questionnaire will not give good
data with which to address your research questions.
• In preparing a questionnaire, you must consider how you intend
to use the information; you must know what statistics you intend
to use.
• Depending on the statistical technique you have in mind, you
may need to ask the question in a particular way, or provide
different response formats.
• I would suggest that you read further on the topic if you are
designing your own study.
• A really great book for this purpose is DeVaus (2002) or Boyce
(2003).
Question types
• Most questions can be classified into two groups:
• closed or open-ended.
• A closed question involves offering respondents a
number of defined response choices.
• They are asked to mark their response using a tick,
cross, circle, etc. The choices may be a simple Yes/No,
Male/Female, or may involve a range of different
choices. For example:
• Closed questions are usually quite easy to convert to the numerical
format required for SPSS.
• For example, Yes can be coded as a 1, No can be coded as a 2;
Males as 1, Females as 2.
• In the education question shown above, the number corresponding
to the response ticked by the respondent would be entered.
• For example, if the respondent ticked Undergraduate university,
this would be coded as a 5. Numbering each of the possible
responses helps with the coding process.
• For data entry purposes, decide on a convention for the
numbering (e.g. in order across the page, and then down), and
stick with it throughout the questionnaire.
• Sometimes you cannot guess all the possible responses
that respondents might make—it is therefore necessary
to use open-ended questions.
• The advantage here is that respondents have the
freedom to respond in their own way, not restricted to
the choices provided by the researcher. For example:
• Responses to open-ended questions can be summarised
into a number of different ategories for entry into SPSS.
• These categories are usually identified after looking
through the range of responses actually received from
the respondents.
• Some possibilities could also be raised from an
understanding of previous research in the area.
• Each of these response categories is assigned a number
(e.g. work=1, finances=2, relationships=3), and this
number is entered into SPSS.
• Sometimes a combination of both closed and open-ended
questions works best.
• This involves providing respondents with a number of defined
responses, and also an additional category (other) that they can
tick if the response they wish to give is not listed.
• A line or two is provided so that they can write the response
they wish to give.
• This combination of closed and open-ended questions is
particularly useful in the early stages of research in an area,
as it gives an indication of whether the defined response
categories adequately cover all the responses that respondents
wish to give.
Response format
• In asking respondents a question, you also need to decide on a response
format.
• The type of response format you choose can have implications when you
come to do your statistical analysis.
• Some analyses (e.g. correlation) require scores that are continuous, from low
through to high, with a wide range of scores.
• If you had asked respondents to indicate their age by giving them a category
to tick (e.g. less than 30, between 31 and 50 and over 50), these data would
not be suitable to use in a correlational analysis.
• So, if you intend to explore the correlation between age and, say, self-
esteem, you will need to ensure that you ask respondents for their actual age
in years.
• Be warned though, some people don’t like giving their exact age (e.g. women
over 30!).
• Try to provide as wide a choice of responses to your
questions as possible.
• You can always condense things later if you need to (We
will discuss it further later).
• But, don’t just ask respondents whether they agree or
disagree with a statement—use a Likert-type scale,
which can range from strongly disagree to strongly
agree:
• This type of response scale gives you a wider range of possible scores, and increases the
statistical analyses that are available to you.
• You will need to make a decision concerning the number of response steps (e.g. 1 to 6) that you
use. DeVellis (2003) has a good discussion concerning the advantages and disadvantages of
different response scales.
• Whatever type of response format you choose, you must provide clear instructions.
• Do you want your respondents to tick a box, circle a number, make a mark on a line?
• For some respondents, this may be the first questionnaire that they have completed. Don’t
assume they know how to respond appropriately.
• Give clear instructions, provide an example if appropriate, and always pilot-test on the type of
people that will make up
• your sample.
• Iron out any sources of confusion before distributing hundreds of your questionnaires.
• In designing your questions, always consider how a respondent might interpret the question
and all the possible responses a person might want to make.
• For example, you may want to know whether people smoke or not. You might ask the question:
• In trialling this questionnaire, your respondent might
ask whether you mean cigarettes, cigars or Shesha.
• Is knowing whether they smoke enough?
• Should you also find out how much they smoke (two or
three cigarettes, versus two or three packs),
• and/or how often they smoke (every day or only on
social occasions)?
•The message here is to consider
each of your questions, what
information they will give you
and what information might be
missing.
Wording the questions
• There is a real art to designing clear, well-written questionnaire items.
• Although there are no clear-cut rules that can guide this process, there are
some things you can do to improve the quality of your questions, and
therefore your data. Try to avoid:
• long complex questions
• double negatives
• double-barrelled questions
• jargon or abbreviations
• culture-specific terms
• words with double meanings
• leading questions
• emotionally loaded words.
• When appropriate, you should consider including a
response category for ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Not applicable’.
• For further suggestions on writing questions, see De
Vaus (2002) and Kline (2005).
Independent & Dependent Variables
• Independent variable: A variable thought to be the cause of some
effect. Used in experimental research to denote a variable that the
experimenter manipulated.
• Dependent variable: A variable thought to be affected by changes in
the independent variable. This is the outcome variable.
• Predictor variable: A variable thought to predict an outcome variable.
Basically an independent variable.
• Outcome variable: A variable thought to change as a function of
change in a predictor variable.
From your initial observation you generate explanations, or theories, of
those observations, from which you can make predictions (hypotheses).

Scientific statements are ones that can be verified (tested) using empirical
evidence.
Levels of Measurement
• Categorical
• Binary variable: Only 2 categories (male, female)
• Nominal variable: More than two categories: young, middle age, elderly.
• Ordinal variable: The variable is ordered by some attribute, such as pain.
(each interval does not represent and EQUAL distance). Ex: RPE & Pain ratings
• Continuous
• Interval variable:
• Ratio variable:
Measurement Error

• Measurement error is the discrepancy between a variables actual value and its
measured value.
• Some variables more prone to errors than others: attitude, pain, volume of gas
expired, blood pressure, height and weight.
• Factors that can influence measurement error:
• Accuracy of instruments
• Random variation in the variable
• Adherence to sound measurement principles
Validity and Reliability
• Validity refers to whether an instrument actually measures what it
is designed to measure.
• DEXA, hydrostatic, and skinfolds can all measure the percent body fat.
DEXA has the highest validity of the three.
• Reliability refers to the consistency of the instrument.
• The easiest way to test reliability is to measure the same people
twice (test-retest reliability).
Correlational vs Experimental Research

• In correlational research we observe what goes on without directly

interfering with it.
• Ex: what is the relationship between anxiety and performance?
• In experimental research we manipulate one variable to see its
effects on another.
• Ex: What is the effect of caffeine on reaction time?
Using Descriptive Statistics

• The descriptive information gives you an idea about the average

level of satisfaction and something about the variability of scores:

• Comparative Statistics
• Suppose you have been funded by a government agency to evaluate
the operation of two charity-sponsored counseling centers and you
get following summary data:

• Average satisfaction score at the uptown location was 82.4 (based on 54

client scores)

• Average satisfaction score at the Downtown location was 78.5 (based on 55

client scores)
• Assuming that the clients are representative at each location, you
have some evidence to make a decision about which center is more
effective in terms of satisfaction scores.

• Your data suggest that the uptown location may do a better job as
far as the satisfaction score is concerned since the score for uptown
is 3.9 point higher that the score for the downtown location.

• However, what if the average scores were only 1 point apart? Or 10

points apart?
• What level of difference would it take for you to conclude that the
average score for one location was significantly higher than for the
other?

• Could the difference in scores be due to random fluctuations? If you

did the survey again during some other time period, is there a
reasonable chance that the downtown location would produce a
better score?
• These questions are addressed with a properly designed and
executed statistical analysis
• Correlations Statistics
• To learn more about your survey results, you could examine your
data in another way.

• Ignoring for a moment the location of the center, you may want to
compare the relationship between educational level of clients and
satisfaction scores.
Understanding Hypotheses testing, Power, and Sample Size

• Alternate (Ha): The population means of the two groups are different

• Null hypotheses (H0) = the population means of the two groups are
the same
• In hypotheses testing two types of errors can occur

• Type-I Error:

• In statistical hypothesis testing, a type I error is the rejection of a true null hypothesis, while a
type II error is failing to reject a false null hypothesis.

• Type-II Error
Understanding the p-Value

• The “evidence” used to reject a null hypotheses is summarized in a

probability called a p-value.