"How To Analyze Data In A Primary Research Study" by Melody Denny & Lindsay Clark

Link: https://writingspaces.org/how-to-analyze-data-in-a-primary-research-study/Links to an

external site.

After reading the article, you will:

 Identify the author's thesis

 What did you find valuable about this article?

 What did you find frustrating?

 Identify and include 1-2 quotes from the article to further explain why you found the

reading or text surprising, valuable, or frustrating.

Assignment Requirements:

 Word Count: 350

 Include MLA in-text citation 

 Respond to at least one of your classmates

The thesis of the article is to share how to analyze primary research for opened and closed ended

questions. The article uses examples to explain how the type of questions you ask participants

determines the type of data you receive. They then provided steps on how to ethically analyze

and interpret the data and keep it unbiased. Something that I found valuable about this article

was the idea of intercoder reliability. In the article, it says that intercoder reliability is "When two

coders compare their results, this allows for qualitative validity, which means the researcher

checks for the accuracy of the findings” (Denny and Clark, 12). This means that it is important to
have your data analysis reviewed by someone else to ensure that the data is not being

misinterpreted or exaggerated. It also makes your research more credible. I also liked that the

article was very easy to understand and provided examples for each step. It helped me grasp the

ideas that the author was conveying more easily rather than if I was just reading the steps by

themselves. Another factor that helped me understand the article was that the authors used the

same example, teenagers opinions on social media, throughout the whole article. This helped tie

all of the different steps together and if it had different examples for each step, it would have

made the information more confusing. Something that I found frustrating was the fact that the

authors did not go into detail about what to do after you have gathered themes in your data. All

they stated was, "Identifying these topics and themes in the data allows us to begin thinking

about what we can learn and share with others about this data" (Denny and Clark, 13).

Something that I struggle with is knowing what to do with the information I had gathered. It

would have been helpful if the author included a bit more about that. Overall, I think this article

was very interesting and a great source to better understand how to analyze primary sources and

ensure that the data collected was ethically interpreted.