Guidance for Researchers: 2023 Quantitative Research Skills mini-series
The previously run three-session research skills training mini-series in Nov-Dec 2023 provided researchers the opportunity to expand their skillsets and learn quantitative research skills. The course information and slides, etc. can be found in the section below.
If you are interested in joining a further development group or community of practice, please email the Research Support Librarian. We are interested in knowing what you'd like to develop further. Please use this survey to indicate your interested areas. Many thanks.
Exploring the quantitative research landscape
Are you conducting quantitative research and working on a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data?
Or, are you are doing qualitative research but are finding it useful to learn another skill set and be equipped to carry out cross-disciplinary research?
Or simply, you would like to be able to understand statistics when you read an article and know how to interpret the data presented.
Either way, this research skills series could help you understand data and statistics and the use of them for academic research.
Speaker: Dr. Philip Dee, Academic Development Department (ADD), Faculty of HELS
Dr. Philip Dee has worked at BCU for nearly 20 years and in that time has evolved his support role to include research and statistics. He has a PhD in Nuclear Physics and during his time at BCU has ‘translated’ his research knowledge in order to offer support in the faculty of HELS to research-active staff and students and is currently an active supervisor up to PhD level. To consolidate his research skills, Philip has recently completed a degree with the Open University in ‘Mathematics and Statistics’ and is a member of the Royal Statistics Society (RSS). He maintains a YouTube channel which supports many aspects of academic support, numeracy and statistics.
1. Introducing quantitative research - descriptive statistics
• Overview to the series
• Overcoming the Jargon barrier
• Numbers in research
• Summarising the data – Measures of the average
• Summarising the data – Measures of the spread
• Demonstration with SPSS
2. Introducing quantitative research - inferential statistics
• Confidence Intervals
• Clinical significance
• Statistical significance – the p-value
• Common inferential statistical tests (chi-square, correlation, t-test)
• Demonstration with SPSS
3. Bringing together descriptive and inferential statistics - critical appraisal of research articles
• A first look – using common sense
• What must we address and what might we ‘ignore’?
• Reliability and validity
• Sampling issues
• Data collection issues
• Types of bias
• Critical appraisal tools
This training series have finished. A further series under development. Let us know if you want to be involved in a further development group/community of practice and receive help with your research. Email the Research Support Librarian and indicate your interested areas of training and support by using this survey.