It is common knowledge that statistics involves manipulating data. It involves calculating such things as average, median, frequencies and percentages among other statistics from a set of data. Statistical analysis involves analyzing numerical data or data in the form of numbers. This granted, have you ever wondered how data that begins as words ends up being reported in the form of numbers? Many people and especially students undertaking a statistics course or who are undertaking a research study that involves collecting and analysing data statistically often wonder whether it is possible to change words to data and if so what to do to create numbers from words. If the question in your mind is, “how do you get statistics from words?” or “how to do you perform word data analysis?”, then you better read on. This article is for you if you want to learn how to perform words data analysis or go from words to numerical data.
At this point, you probably know that data may be categorized into two; qualitative data and quantitative data. Quantitative data is numerical data while qualitative data is non-numerical data. Quantitatve data is usually analysed mathematically or statistically. It is for quantitative data that we can determine or calculate such things as means, mode, median, standard deviation, and variance. When dealing with quantitative data, we can also perform tests such as correlation, regression, t-test, and chi-square test among others.
Since qualitative data is not in the form of numbers, it is usually analysed through methods that do not involve mathematical calculations. Some of the methods used to analyse qualitative data include content analysis, thematic analyisis, narrative analysis, and discourse analyisis. Despite the clear difference between quantitative and quantitative data, how is it that in quantitative research, many of the questions asked and the answers given are always in words and not in numbers?
One answer to this question relates to counting of the data items. You can count data to come up with statistics such as frequencies and proportions. How, you ask? Take a look at the questions and data below and notice that you can indeed get statistics from data that is presented in the form of words.
Assume we are conducting a study and ask a sample of 15 university students these three questions?
- What is your gender?
- Male
- Female
- What is your current marital status?
- Single
- Married
- Separated or divorced
- Widowed
- How satisfied are you with your university?
- Very dissatisfied
- Somewhat dissatisfied
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
Assume we collect the following data from the students.
|
Student No. |
Gender |
Marital Status |
Level of satisfaction |
|
1 |
Female |
Married |
Very dissatisfied |
|
2 |
Female |
Single |
Somewhat satisfied |
|
3 |
Male |
Single |
Very satisfied |
|
4 |
Female |
Separated or divorced |
Somewhat satisfied |
|
5 |
Male |
Married |
Somewhat satisfied |
|
6 |
Female |
Separated or divorced |
Very dissatisfied |
|
7 |
Male |
Married |
Somewhat dissatisfied |
|
8 |
Female |
Single |
Somewhat satisfied |
|
9 |
Female |
Married |
Very satisfied |
|
10 |
Female |
Separated or divorced |
Very dissatisfied |
|
11 |
Male |
Single |
Somewhat dissatisfied |
|
12 |
Female |
Widowed |
Somewhat satisfied |
|
13 |
Male |
Married |
Very satisfied |
|
14 |
Male |
Single |
Somewhat dissatisfied |
|
15 |
Female |
Married |
Very dissatisfied |
From this raw data, we can determine frequencies and proportions (percentages):
|
Gender |
Frequency (number) |
Percentage |
|
Female |
9 |
60.0% |
|
Male |
6 |
40.0% |
|
Total |
15 |
100.0% |
|
Marital status |
Frequency |
Percentage |
|
Single |
5 |
33.3% |
|
Married |
6 |
40.0% |
|
Separated or divorced |
3 |
20.0% |
|
Widowed |
1 |
6.7% |
|
Total |
15 |
100.0% |
|
Marital status |
Frequency |
Percentage |
|
Very dissatisfied |
4 |
26.7% |
|
Somewhat dissatisfied |
3 |
20.0% |
|
Somewhat satisfied |
5 |
33.3% |
|
Very satisfied |
3 |
20.0% |
|
Total |
15 |
100.0% |
As you can see, by counting the number of people in each category, we can determine frequencies and percentages. We can also determine modes and medians from the data by arranging and counting the data.
Can we go further to determine inferential statistics such as correlation coefficients and regression coefficients? The answer to this question is yes, but not before converting the word data to numerical data. The ability to perform even more statistical analysis even when the raw data is purely in words lies in the fact that in quantitative research, some words or phrases can be changed to numbers.
To perform word data analysis in quantitative research, you first need to change qualitative to quantitative data, so to say. So you more like need to transform words to statistics or text to statistics. Without transforming the necessary words or text to numbers, you may not be able to perform certain kinds of statistical analysis, especially inferential tests. Learning how to do a word to statistic transformation or words to statistic conversion is an easy thing. Once you learn how to change words to numerical data, performing different statistical analysis on your data will be a more straightforward endeavour.
If you are undertaking quantitative research, doing a course on statistics, or interested in using statistics for decision making, you no doubt need to learn how to perform words data analysis, that is, how to go from words to statistic. In case you are interested in learning how to calculate different statistics when the raw data that you have is presented in words (rather than in numbers), here is an opportunity that you cannot afford to miss. Download this article and learn how to statistically analyse raw data that is presented in word form.
The article explains how to change from word data to numbers using simple language and practical examples. In addition, the article uses worked examples to show how to statistically analyse raw data that is presented in words to come up with statistics such as means, modes, medians, standard deviation, and correlation coefficients. You have no reason to miss out on the important skill of words data analysis in quantitative research. Download the article now and learn how to change words to numeric data and analyse the data statistically.