Basic HTML Version
© 2014 Pacific Crest
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Step
Explanation
3.
Develop inquiry
questions
Identify three to five key questions central to the inquiry to clarify what
results you want to produce. What are the fundamental questions that you
hope to answer? What characteristics of the data set are you looking to
identify?
Do guns dominate homicides?
Do semi-automatic weapons contribute greatly?
Have the incidents of gun-related homicide increased more than other types?
4.
Produce relevant
graphs
Choose to construct a collection of histograms, box plots, pie charts, or bar
graphs to help answer the original research question.
Line graph and a stacked bar graph
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Other weapon
Blunt object
Knif e
Other gun
Handgun
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000
11000
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Handgun
Other gun
Knif e
Blunt object
Other weapon
5.
Identify data
analysis tool
Selection of spreadsheet, stat package, modeling language, database, or
specialize software
Spreadsheet
6.
Transform the data
Make structural changes in your table to facilitate better view, perspective
and understanding of what the data is representing
Add a column for total and create a second table or space to track percentages too:
Handgun
Other
Gun
Knife
Blunt
Object
Other
Weapon
TOTAL
1977
8,563
(44.8%)
3,391
(17.7%)
3,648
(19.1%)
900
(4.7%)
2,618
(13.7%)
19120
7.3 Data Analysis