Contents
Preface 2
List of Figures 11
List of Tables 18
1 Statistics and Empirical Research 19
1.1 Do Statistics Lie? 19
1.2 Different Types of Statistics 21
1.3 The Generation of Knowledge Through Statistics 24
1.4 The Phases of Empirical Research 26
1.4.1 From Exploration to Theory 26
1.4.2 From Theories to Models 27
1.4.3 From Models to Business Intelligence 31
References 33
2 From Disarray to Dataset 34
2.1 Data Collection 34
2.2 Level of Measurement 35
2.3 Scaling and Coding 39
2.4 Missing Values 41
2.5 Outliers and Obviously Incorrect Values 43
2.6 Chapter Exercises 43
2.7 Exercise Solutions 44
References 45
3 Univariate Data Analysis 46
3.1 First Steps in Data Analysis 46
3.2 Measures of Central Tendency 54
3.2.1 Mode or Modal Value 54
3.2.2 Mean 55
3.2.3 Geometric Mean 60
3.2.4 Harmonic Mean 61
3.2.5 The Median 64
3.2.6 Quartile and Percentile 67
3.3 The Boxplot: A First Look at Distributions 68
3.4 Dispersion Parameters 72
3.4.1 Standard Deviation and Variance 73
3.4.2 The Coefficient of Variation 75
3.5 Skewness and Kurtosis 76
3.6 Robustness of Parameters 79
3.7 Measures of Concentration 80
3.8 Using the Computer to Calculate Univariate Parameters 83
3.8.1 Calculating Univariate Parameters with SPSS 83
3.8.2 Calculating Univariate Parameters with Stata 84
3.8.3 Calculating Univariate Parameters with Excel 85
3.9 Chapter Exercises 86
3.10 Exercise Solutions 89
References 93
4 Bivariate Association 94
4.1 Bivariate Scale Combinations 94
4.2 Association Between Two Nominal Variables 95
4.2.1 Contingency Tables 95
4.2.2 Chi-Square Calculations 97
4.2.3 The Phi Coefficient 102
4.2.4 The Contingency Coefficient 105
4.2.5 Cramer’s V 107
4.2.6 Nominal Associations with SPSS 107
4.2.7 Nominal Associations with Stata 112
4.2.8 Nominal Associations with Excel 112
4.3 Association Between Two Metric Variables 114
4.3.1 The Scatterplot 114
4.3.2