Question

Share what you learned about descriptive analysis (statistics), inferential analysis (statistics), and qualitative analysis of data; include something that you learned that was interesting to you and your thoughts on why data analysis is necessary for discovering credible findings for nursing. Compare clinical significance and statistical significance; include which one is more meaningful to you when considering application of findings to nursing practice.

Answer 1

Descriptive statistics as the name suggests decribes the data available with values. The description typically involve:

• Measures of central tendency- mean, mode and median
• Measures of frequency- data desciption as percentage
• Measures of dispersion- standard deviation, range
• Measures of position- percentiles, quartiles etc.

It describes the data that is alrerady available. But no further extrapolations or inferences can be made through this statistical method. Nevertheless, they help in organisation and analysis of data in ameaningful manner. The data can then be represented in a graphical manner.

Inferential statistics is a branch of statistics that analyses the data available from a sample of the population. Inferences that are applicable to the entire population can be deduced by this analysis. This involves:

• identification of a research question
• formation of a hypothesis to be tested- to answer the research question. A null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis is formulated
• statistical analysis/testing of the hypothesis using appropriate tests- parametric or non parameteric
• interpreting the data analysed and developing conclusions

It can even predict future outcomes based on the analysis. Final result is expressed in probablities.

Statistical significance points to the validity of the study methods and results. It may not lead to clinically important outcomes. Clinical significance is attained when the study results have clinically important outcome on present evidence based practics. For nursing clinical significance is more important than statistical significance.