Exploratory and Descriptive Statistics

Nervous about statistics? This guide offers a clear, straight to the point break down of exploratory and descriptive statistics and its potential. Anchored by lots of examples and exercises to enhance your learning, it offers gudience on how to:

• Identify and access different types of variables and data
• Select the best method for measuring your chosen variables and data
• Use data viusalization techniques to tell stories with your data
• Appropriately clean and manage your data

Part of The SAGE Quantitative Research Kit, this book will give you the know-how and confidence needed to succeed on your quantitative research journey.

About the Authors

Professor Julie Scott Jones is the Head of the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Director of the MMU Q-Step Centre, which received GBP1.15 million in funding from the Nuffield Foundation-ESRC-HEFCE. She joined Manchester Metropolitan University in 2003 and since 2018 has been the Head of department. Julie is the author of 'Being the Chosen; exploring a Christian Fundamentalist Worldview' (2010) and co-author of 'Ethnography in Social Science Practice' (2010). More recently, she has co-authored a number of journal articles on the pedagogy of quantitative methods teaching, based on her current research based in this field. She is currently teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate research methods modules, with a particular interest in ethics and quantitative data analysis.

Dr John E. Goldring is the Co-Director of the Q-Step Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University, one of 15 centres across the UK to receive funding to promote the development of quantitative methods teaching across the HE sector. Joining Manchester Metropolitan University in 2004, his initial research and teaching focus was on men, masculinity and health. He started teaching statistical analysis in 2012 where he developed a narrative approach to working with numbers based on a Freirean principles of raising critical consciousness and challenging social injustice. Teaching on research methods units at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, he has also successfully supervised a number of PhD students through to completion. In addition to co-authoring of a number of journal articles on pedagogic approaches to teaching statistics, he has written on ethnographies of men's health.