How could you use Minitab descriptive statistics for data analysis research? Write about your experience running descriptive statistics. Use the results in the Session Window to support your response. Then add to your discussion with the information you learn when completing Step 3.
Data analysis research is an integral part of various methods used in nursing research. Nursing research dealing with data first collects data from various sources to study it (Grove, Burns, & Gray, 2013). However, all the collected research data is useless unless it is analyzed using suitable statistical tools. For example, it the example discussed in part-1, the original data comprises of five variables namely age, cringe, uneasy, afraid, worried, understand.
An initial look at the data shows that the data has two set of variables namely dependent and independent variable. Assuming that the collected data represent patients’ experience with a certain treatment, and the age represents the age of a patient, it can be concluded that the response of the patient is recorded on a scale of 1 to 5. Now, this data i.e. table does not give much insight into the record or its nature. In order to derive meaningful results and correlations, one needs to conduct statistical analysis such as finding the mean, median, variance, correlation, and standard deviation.
Minitab is a useful tool for running the statistical analysis. The practice of running the descriptive statistics shows that Minitab has advanced features to easily analyze the statistically important parameters such as mean, standard deviation, variance, covariance, sum, minimum, maximum, median and multiple other statistical parameters. Figure 1 below shows the results from the session window. Minitab is an efficient and useful tool for analyzing the data without getting into tough and difficult computing methods.
What are your plans for learning more about Minitab and how will the information you learnedabout this software be of benefit in your future analysis of research data? Copy and paste yourgraph(s) in a Word document and attach to your discussion response
As a student, I plan to use Minitab for improving my results and analysis part. For example, I can use Minitab to produce beautiful and meaningful graphs. In addition, I can save time of difficult statistical calculations and use it for my research work.
For a nursing domain, it is important to save his or her useful time to do multitasking (Gutierrez, Ang, Carlos, & Umali, 2015). Therefore, Minitab can be used for understanding research data, analyzing research data, and presenting the research data in a meaningful manner. I plan to use Minitab for statistical analysis. In addition, it can be difficult to manually input a large research data. Therefore, a spreadsheet can be used for importing the collected data into Minitab, which is very useful feature. Minitab has distinct features such as Data and Graph plots, which makes it very useful. It also gives tighter control on the data and associated variables.
For example, the user can select specific variable among all the available variables to analyze the result, giving better control to users. I plotted histogram which gives meaningful results on the age distribution. Therefore, histogram produced with Minitab graph option is clear and presentable. In addition to the histogram, there are many other graphs that can be used to plot meaningful results such as Bubble plot, Bar Chart, Pie Chart, and Probability distribution curve. However, one needs to be careful while plotting graph as the usefulness of graph depends on the type of data. Below are three graphs that were plotted using Minitab namely Histogram, Box, and probability graph.
References
Grove, S. K., Burns, N., & Gray, J. (2013). The practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Gutierrez, A. M. J., Ang, E. K. S., Carlos, P. M. A., & Umali, J. C. (2015). A Multi-Dimensional Study On The Relationship Of Emotional Intelligence To The Multitasking Ability Of Nursing Students: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach. Paper presented at the Proceedings 19th Triennial Congress of the IEA.