Business Research Methods

Alemseged Gerezgiher
(BSc, MBA, PhD)

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 Part VI (Sub-part I)
Data Analysis, Interpretation
and Reporting

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Chapter Six: Data Analysis, Interpretation and
Reporting

Data Management and Support Software

Hypothesis Testing

Descriptive Analysis

Inferential Analysis
Interpretation, scientific writing and Reporting

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 Data Management and Support Software
Data processing and analysis starts with proper preparation of
the data and making it ready for appropriate analysis.
It involves:
editing,
coding,
classifying and
 tabulation of the collected data
i) Editing
Editing of data is the process of examining the collected raw
data to detect errors and omissions.
In general one edits to assure that the data are:
 Accurate

 Consistent with other information/facts gathered

05/07/24 Uniformly entered


4
Data Management…
The editing can be done at two levels
a) Field level Editing
 After an interview, field workers should review their
reporting forms, complete what was abbreviated, translate
personal shorthand, rewrite illegible entries, and make
callback if necessary.
b) Central editing
 when all forms have been completed and returned to the
office data editors correct obvious errors such as entry in
wrong place, recorded in wrong units, etc.
ii) Coding
 Coding refers to the process of assigning
numerals to answers so that responses can be put
into a limited number of categories or classes -
coding sheet.
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Data Management
iii) Classification and Tabulation
 large volume of raw data must be reduced into
homogenous groups if we are to get meaningful
relationships.
Classification is the process of arranging data in groups
or classes on the basis of common characteristics.
Tabulation is the orderly arrangement of data in columns
and rows.
Simple or complex tables.
Simple tabulation gives information about one variable.
Complex tabulation shows the division of data into two
or more categories.
SPSS, Lotus, excel, STATA, R, SAS etc.
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Data Management…
Tabulation provides the following advantages:
 It conserves space and reduces explanatory and
descriptive statement to a minimum.
 It facilitates the process of comparison
 It facilitates the summation of items and the detection
of errors and omissions
 It provides a basis for various statistical computations
such as measures of central tendencies, dispersions, etc.

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Data Management…
In a nutshell, data management involves:
Defining variables
Coding values
Entering and editing data
Creating new variables
Recoding variables
Selecting cases (observations)

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Support Software: the SPSS

The basics of windows in SPSS

The data entry and management process
The basics of data analysis using SPSS

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The basics of windows in SPSS
What is SPSS?
Originally it is an acronym of Statistical Package for the
Social Science but now it stands for Statistical Product and
Service Solutions (IBM)
One of the most popular statistical packages which can
perform highly complex data manipulation and analysis
with simple instructions
A software package useful for conducting statistical
analysis, manipulating data, and generating tables and
graphs.

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 The basics of windows in SPSS
 Opening SPSS
 Start → All Programs → IBM SPSS Statistics→ SPSS version → SPSS version
 Or Double Click on the SPSS icon on your Desktop

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 The basics of windows in SPSS

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 The basics of windows in SPSS
• Two bars appear (menu bar and tool bar) once the window is opened

• Menu Bar:
• The menu bar provides a series of “drop down” commands to perform
most essential SPSS functions. By clicking on a menu command, a further
series of menu options will appear. Many of these submenu commands
will be discussed in further detail in this note.
• File: These are the basic file management operations.
• e.g. opening, saving, and printing files
• Edit: This allows you to perform editing functions on the current data set.
• e.g. cut, copy, clear, undo changes and redo changes
• View: Allows you to change the current view of data, as well as toolbar
options.
•
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e.g. grid lines, value labels 13
The basics of windows in SPSS
 Data: These functions deal with the configuration, defining, and
management of data.
 e.g. insert variables/cases, sort data, merge files
 Transform: This allows you to transform the data set you’ve entered.
 e.g. calculating new variables, recoding, missing values
 Analyze: Includes the main data analysis functions.
 e.g. descriptive statistics, t-Tests, ANOVA, correlation, data
reduction
 Windows: Allows you to alter the appearance, format, position of the
SPSS windows.

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The basics of windows in SPSS
 Toolbar: The toolbar contains icons to facilitate easy point and click operations.
Because these can be customized, they may vary slightly between systems. Below is
a description of the main icons:
Open files Undo last operation
Save data Redo last operation
Print file Insert case
Find data Insert variable
(1) (2)

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The basics of windows in SPSS
The default window will have the data editor
There are two sheets in the window:
1. Data view 2. Variable view

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The basics of windows in SPSS
Data Editor
Spreadsheet-like system for defining, entering, editing,
and displaying data. Extension of the saved file will be
“sav.”
It contains data view and variable view.
Data view
 The place to enter data
 Columns: variables
 Rows: records
Variable view
 The place to enter variables
 List of all variables
 Characteristics of all variables
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Creating own dataset: The data entry process
It involves two general steps.
Define your variables in Variable View
Enter the data, the values of the variables, in Data
View
• The two parts (Views) of the “Data Editor” are
used in combination to enter data.
• First, variables are defined in “Variable View”.
• Second, the data are entered in “Data View”.

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The data entry process
Data View has two parts: rows and columns.
Rows represent cases or observations, that is, the
objects on which data have been collected:
For example, rows represent the contents of a single
observation data collection form, the information on an
individual
Columns represent variables or characteristics of the
object of interest:
For example, each column contains the answers to the
questions on the observation data collection form: age,
gender, etc

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 Columns:
variables

Rows:
cases

Under Data
View

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The data entry process
Definition of variables
10 characteristics are used to define a variable:

Name Values

Type Missing

Width Column

Decimals Align

Label Measure

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 The data entry process: enter variables

1. Click Variable View

2. Type variable name
2. Type 4. under Name column
variable Description (AGE).
name of variable NOTE: Variable name can
3. Type:
numeric or
be 64 bytes long, and
string the first character must
be a letter or one of the
characters @, #, or $.
3. Type: Numeric, string,
1. Click this etc.
Window
4. Label: description of
variables.

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 Enter variables…
 Variable View window
 This sheet contains information about the data that is stored with the
dataset
 Name
 The first character of the variable name must be alphabetic
 Variable names must be unique, and have to be less than 64 characters.
 Spaces are NOT allowed and the name should be consistent
 Try to give meaningful variable names

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 Enter variables…
Type
 Click on the ‘type’ box. The two basic types of variables for ‘input’
and ‘output’
 This column enables you to specify the type of variable.

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Enter variables…
Internal formats: Output formats:
Numeric Comma
String (alphanumeric) Dot
Date Scientific notation
Dollar
Custom currency

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Enter variables…
Numeric variables:
 Numeric measurements
 Codes
 Definition of the size of the variable
String variables (alphanumeric) contain words or
characters; strings can include numbers but, taken here as
characters, mathematical operations cannot be applied to
them
 The maximum size of a string variable is 255 characters
Date: The input format for date variables must be defined,
such as DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY or MM/DD/YY
 Example: 1 January 2020

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 Enter Variables
Width
Width allows you to determine the number of characters
SPSS will allow to be entered for the variable

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 Enter variables…
Decimals
Number of decimals
It has to be less than or equal to 16

3.14159265

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Enter variables…
Label
You can specify the details of the variable
Descriptors for the variables
You can write characters with spaces up to 256
characters
Used in the output

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 Enter variables…
Values
 This is used and to suggest which numbers represent which
categories when the variable represents a category
 Value labels are descriptors of the categories of a variable
 It uses coding

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 Enter variables…
Values
 Click the cell in the values column as shown below
 For the value, and the label, you can put up to 60 characters.
 After defining the values click add and then click OK.

Click

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Enter variables…
Missing
Defines missing values
The values are excluded from some analysis
Options:
 Up to 3 discrete missing values
 A range of missing values plus one discrete missing value

 Example: enter ‘999’ as missing value for age as indicated in

the next slide.

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Enter variables…

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Enter variables…

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Enter variables…
Columns and Aligns
Columns sets the amount of space reserved to display
the contents of the variable in Data View; generally the
default value is adequate
Align sets whether the contents of the variable appear
on the left, centre or right of the cell in Data View
Numeric variables are right-hand justified by default
and string variables left-hand justified by default; the
defaults are generally adequate

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 Enter variables…
Measure
Indicates the nature/level of measurement of the variable
Levels of measurement:
 Nominal
 Ordinal

 Interval

 Ratio

In SPSS, interval and ratio are designated together as

Scale
The default for string variables is Nominal
The default for numeric variables is Scale

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 Enter cases/data

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 Import data from Excel
Select File Open Data
Choose Excel as file type
Select the file you want to import
Then click Open

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 Open Excel files in SPSS

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 Continue

Save this
file as
SPSS
data

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Saving the file
The file must always be saved in order to save the
work that has been done to date:
File/Save
Move to the target directory
Enter a file name
Save

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 Output Viewer
 Output Viewer
Displays output and errors. Extension of the saved file will
be “spv.”

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 Transforming data
 Click ‘Transform’ and then click ‘Recode Variable’ or ‘Compute
Variable…’

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Transforming data: Computing variables
Let’s create a new variable which is the sum of other
variables
Click on “Transform” and then on “Compute”
Enter the new variable name into the target variable box
Enter the formula for this new variable into the “Numeric
Expression” box
Click on OK

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 Computing variables
 Example: Adding a new variable named ‘lnheight’ which is
the natural log of height
 Type in lnheight in the ‘Target Variable’ box. Then type in
‘ln(height)’ in the ‘Numeric Expression’ box. Click OK

Click

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 Computing Variables…
A new variable ‘lnheight’ is added to the table

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Transforming Data: Recoding into variables
We can transform variables by recoding which
means to combine categories on an existing
variable into fewer categories
We can transform variables by creating new
variables out of existing variables
We can select particular cases and analyze only
these cases

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Recoding into variables…
Recoding into different variables
Recoding into the same variable
It is recommended recoding into different variables
and not using the into same variable option

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Recoding into different variables
Click on “Transform” and then on “Recode” and then
on “into different variables”
Select the variable you want to recode
Start by giving the new variable a new name and
assigning a variable label to the new variable. Click
on “Change”

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Recoding into different variables…
Recode AGE into four categories and give it the
name of AGE1
Click on “Old and New Values”
Use “Range” (fourth option down) to recode as
follows. Remember to click on “Add” after
entering each recode
18 to 29 = 1
30 to 49 = 2
50 to 69 = 3
70 to 89 = 4
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