Business research slides

1. Alpha University College
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Business Research Methods

2. Part VI (Sub-part III)
Data Analysis, Interpretation
and Reporting
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3. Chapter Six: Data Analysis, Interpretation and Reporting
Data Management and Support Software
Hypothesis Testing
Descriptive Analysis
Inferential Analysis
Interpretation, scientific writing and Reporting
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4. Report writing: Introduction
 Researchers spend much time designing projects,
developing questionnaires, collecting and analyzing data.
 But, the intrinsic value of a study can also be easily
destroyed by poor report preparation.
 A well-presented study can impress the reader more than
another study with greater scientific quality but a weaker
presentation.
 Hard work and excellence alone do not guarantee that
public policy research will have impact.

5. Interpretation, scientific writing and
Reporting: Contents
1. Introduction
2. The writing process
3. Types of research reports
4. Components of a technical report
 The methods
 Findings and discussions
 Summary and conclusion
 Recommendations
 The appended section
 Presentation consideration and briefings.
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6. Introduction
 In order to have impact, good research alone is
insufficient.
 Hence, researchers must communicate clearly and fully
their research results.
 Writing is a process- it takes time, and effort and improves
with practice.
 When writing the research report it would be important to
consider:
 What is the purpose of the report?
 Who will read the report?
 How will the report be used? etc.

7. The Writing Process
Generally the writing process has three major steps:
i) Pre-writing: prepare to write by arranging notes on the
literature, making lists of ideas, outlining, completing
bibliographic citations, footnotes, and organizing
comments on data analysis.
ii) Composing: get your ideas onto paper as a first draft by
free-writing –draft report.

8. The Writing process
iii) Rewriting: evaluate and polish the report by improving
coherence, proofreading for mechanical errors, checking
citations, and reviewing voices and tenses.
 This step actually involves two related procedures:
 Revising – is the process of inserting new ideas, adding
supportive evidences, deleting or changing old ideas,
etc.
 Editing – is the process of cleaning up -spelling,
grammar usage, verb tense, sentence length and
paragraph organization.

9. Types of Research Reports
 We may have short and long reports.
Short Reports : are more informal and are appropriate for
studies in which the problem is well defined, of limited
scope, and for which methodologies are simple and
straightforward.
 Example: interim reports.
At the beginning, there should be a brief statement on
the problem.
Next comes the conclusions and recommendations,
followed by findings that support the conclusions.

10. Types of Research Reports
Long Reports : Long reports are long and follow well-defined
formats.
 They are of two types, the technical or base report and
the popular report.
 Which of these to use depends chiefly on the audience and
the researcher’s objectives.
i) The technical report
 this report should include full documentation and detail
- it is the major source document.

11. Types of Research Reports
 It contains information on the:
 sources of the data,
 sampling design,
 data gathering instruments,
 data analysis methods, as well as
 a full presentation and analysis of the data.
 Conclusions and recommendation should be clearly related to
specific findings.

12. Types of Research Reports
ii) The popular report
 The popular report is designed for the non-technical
audience with no research background and may be
interested only in results rather than methodology.
 Decision makers need help in making decisions.
 Popular report should encourage rapid reading, quick
comprehension of major findings and prompt
understanding of the implication and conclusions.

13. Types of Research Reports
Report format for long reports
 Two arrangements are typically used – the logical
format and the psychological format.
The logical format
 the introductory information covering the purpose of
the study, the methodology and limitations is followed
by the findings.
 The findings are analyzed and then followed by the
conclusions and recommendations.

14. Types of Research Reports
The psychological format : The conclusions and
recommendations are presented immediately after the
introduction with the findings coming later.
 Readers are quickly exposed to the most critical
information i.e. conclusions and recommendations.
 If they wish to go further they may read on into the
findings, which support the conclusion.
Other report formats -the chronological report, which
is based on time sequence or occurrence.

15. Components of a technical report
 While some may be dropped, other may be added and their
order may vary from one situation to another, a research
report contains several components or elements.
 In general there are three parts: the prefatory pages, the
body of the report and the appended sections.
A) Prefatory pages – this section includes the title page, tables
of contents, charts and illustrations, synopsis (summary,
abstracts).

16. Components of a technical report
The Title page – the title page should include four items: the
title of the report, the date, for whom prepared and by whom
the report was prepared.
 A satisfactory title should be brief, but should at least
include:
 The variables included in the study, the type of
relationship between the variables, and the population
to which the results may be applied.

17. Components of a technical report
The table of contents – any report of several sections should
have a table of content.
Abstract – this is a short summary.
 It goes first in the report, but should be written last.
 It helps the reader determine whether the full report
contains important information.
 It is essential that your abstract includes all the keywords
of your research.

18. Components of a technical report
 An abstract should briefly:
 Re-establish the topic of the research.
 Give the research problem and/or main objective of the
research.
 Indicate the methodology used.
 Present the main findings and conclusions
 It must be short, because it should give only a summary of
your research.

19. Components of a technical report
Common Problems in preparing the Abstract
 Too long and too much detail: Abstracts that are too long
often have unnecessary details.
 The abstract is not the place for detailed explanations of
methodology or the context of your research problem.
 Too short: Shorter is not necessarily better.
 You should review your abstract and see where you could
usefully give more explanation.

20. Components of a technical report
B) The body of the report – contains the introduction, findings,
summary and conclusions and recommendations.
1) Introduction – will mostly contain the same material as the
introduction to your proposal
 It introduces the research by
 giving the background,
 presenting the research problem,
 indicating the objectives,
 the rationale or significance and the scope and
limitations.

21. Components of a technical report
 Introducing the rest of the report
The last paragraph of the introduction should explain
the organization of the rest of the report
Example: “Section two reviews the relevant literature.
In Section 3, we describe the data we have collected. In
Section four, we test our hypothesis using this data.
Section five concludes and makes recommendations
for future research.”

22. Components of a technical report
Common problems in writing the introduction
 Too much detail, and hence too long: detailed descriptions
of method, study site and results should come in later
sections.
 Repetition of words, phrases or ideas. A high level of
repetition makes your look careless.
 Unclear problem definition: Without a clear definition of
your research problem, your reader is left with no clear idea
of what you were studying.
 Poor organization

23. Literature Review
The report also includes a literature review.
Literature means the works you consulted in order to
understand and investigate your research problem.
It should justify the following ideas:
Other people are interested in the general topic
Other studies left the problem unsolved which leaves a gap
in the literature
Your study fills the gap at least a little bit

24. Literature Review
Common Problems:
 Trying to read everything: if you try to be comprehensive you
will never be able to finish the reading!
 The literature review should not provide a summary of all
the published work that relates to your research, but a
survey of the most relevant and significant work.
 Reading but not writing: Writing takes much more effort than
reading- don't put writing off until you've "finished" reading.
 Not keeping bibliographic information: When preparing your
reference you might notice that you have forgotten to keep the
information you need.
 To avoid this nightmare always put references into your
writing.

25. The methods
Answers at least two main questions:
 How was the data collected or generated?
 How was it analyzed?
 The data collection step covers at least four items:
 the target population that is being studied and the
sampling methods used.
 the research design used and the rationale for using it
including the sample size,
 the materials and instruments used often with a copy of
these materials in the appendix,
 the specific data collection method (survey, observation or
experiment)

26. The methods
 Your methodology should make clear the reasons why
you chose a particular method or procedure.
Common Problems
 unnecessary explanation of basic procedures
 problem blindness: Do not ignore significant problems or
pretend they did not occur.
 Often, recording how you overcome obstacles can
form an interesting part of the methodology.

27. Findings and Discussions
It is an organized presentation of results and is generally
the longest section of the report.
 The Results Section includes:
 statement of results: the results are presented in a
format that is accessible to the reader (e.g. in graphs,
tables, diagrams or written text).
 explanatory text: all graphs, tables, diagrams and
figures should be accompanied by text that guides the
reader's attention to significant results.

28. Findings and Discussions
The Discussion Section:
 The discussion section provides explanation of the results
and includes:
 Explanation of results: comments on whether or not the
results were expected and presents explanations for the
results, particularly for those that are unexpected or
unsatisfactory.
 References to previous research: comparison of the results
with those reported in the literature, or use of the literature to
support a claim or a hypothesis.
 Deduction: a claim for how the results can be applied more
generally.

29. Summary and Conclusion
 The summary section presents:
• What was learned
• The shortcomings of what was done (evaluation)
• The benefits, advantages, applications, etc. of the research
(evaluation).
 The conclusions should follow logically from the discussion of
the findings.

30. Summary and Conclusion
Common Problems
1. Too long. The conclusion section should be short not more
than 2.5% of an entire piece.
2. Too much detail. Conclusions that are too long often have
unnecessary detail.
3. Failure to reveal difficulties encountered: Negative aspects of
your research should not be ignored.
 Problems, drawbacks can be included in your conclusion
section as a way of qualifying your conclusions (i.e.
pointing out the negative aspects.

31. Recommendations
– this involves suggested future actions.
 It makes easy reading if the recommendations are again
placed in roughly the same sequence as the conclusions.
 The recommendations could be for further study, to test,
deepen or broaden understanding in the subject area or for
managerial actions.
 should take into consideration the local conditions,
constraints, feasibility and usefulness of the proposed
solutions.

32. The appended section
– this includes appendix and bibliography.
 Appendix – complex tables, statistical tests, supplying
documents, copies of forms used, detailed description of
the methodology, instructions to field workers, and any
other evidence that may be important.
 The annexes should contain any additional information
needed to enable professionals to follow your research
procedures and data analysis.

33. The appended section
 Examples of information that can be presented in annexes
are:
 tables referred to in the text but not included in order to
keep the report short;
 lists of study sites, -districts, villages, etc. that
participated in the study;
 questionnaires or check lists used for data collection.

34. The appended section
Bibliography :This section should contain all those works, which
the researcher has consulted.
 It should be arranged alphabetically and may be divided into
two parts.
 The first part may contain names of books and pamphlets and
the second part may contain names of magazines and
newspaper articles.
 There may be several bibliographic entry formats. The
following is one of such entry formats.

35. The appended section
 For books and Pamphlets the following order may be adopted.
 Name of the principal author, last name first
 Title, underlined or in italic styles
 Place, publisher and date of publication
 Number and volumes.
 Example: Ethridge, D. E. Research methodology in Applied
Economics, Iowa, Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

36. The appended section
 For magazines, Journal articles and newspapers the following
order is appropriate
 Name of author, last name first
 Title of article in quotation marks
 Name of periodical underlined
 The volume and number
 The data of the issue
 The pagination
 Example: Edwards, Clark. “The potential for Economics
Research” Agricultural Economics Research. 30, 1978, 29–35.

37. The appended section
 The references in your text can be numbered in the
sequence in which they appear in the report and then
listed in this order in the list of references (Vancouver
system).
 Another possibility is the Harvard system of listing in
brackets the author’s name(s) in the text followed by the
date of the publication and page number, for example:
(Shan, 2000: 84).
 You can choose either system as long as you use it
consistently throughout the report.

38. Presentation Consideration
 Reports should be physically inviting, easy to read and
match the comprehension abilities of the designated
audiences (reader).
 Style of writing: Remember that your reader:
 Is short of time
 Has many other urgent matters demanding his or her
interest and attention
 Is probably not knowledgeable concerning ‘research
jargon’
 It is always good to use words that convey thoughts
accurately, clearly and efficiently.

39. Presentation Consideration
 Therefore the rules are:
 Simplify- Keep to the essentials.
 Justify- Make no statement that is not based on facts and
data.
 Quantify when you have the data to do so - Avoid ‘large’,
‘small’; instead, say ‘50%’, ‘one in three’.
 Use short sentences.
 Be consistent in the use of tenses (past or present tense).

40. Presentation Consideration
Layout of the report: A good physical layout is important since it
will:
 make a good initial impression,
 encourage the readers, and
 give them an idea of how the material has been organized
so the reader can make a quick determination of what he
will read first.
 Poor reproduction, dirty typewriter type, incorrect spelling
and typographic errors, overcrowding of text, inadequate
labeling of charts and tables, etc. reduce the credibility of a
report.

41. Presentation Consideration
 So, make sure that there is:
 An attractive layout for the title page and a clear table of
contents.
 Consistency in margins, spacing, headings and
subheadings,
 Numbering of figures and tables, provision of clear titles
for tables, and clear headings for columns and rows, etc.
 Accuracy and consistency in quotations and references.

42. Presentation Consideration
 Revising and finalizing the text : the following questions
should be kept in mind when revising:
 Have all important findings been included?
 Do the conclusions follow logically from the findings? If
some of the findings contradict each other, has this been
discussed and explained? Have weaknesses in the
methodology, if any, been revealed?
 Are there any overlaps in the draft that have to be
removed? And is it possible to condense the content?

43. Presentation Consideration
 Do data in the text agree with data in the tables? Are all
tables consistent (with the same number of informants per
variable), are they numbered in sequence, and do they have
clear titles and headings?
 Is the sequence of paragraphs and subsections logical and
coherent? Is there a smooth connection between successive
paragraphs and sections? Is the phrasing of findings and
conclusions precise and clear?
 Perform a spell check and grammar check.

44. Briefings (presentation)
 Good presentation improves both the research and the
reputation of the researcher.
 A successful briefing typically requires a condensation of a
lengthy and complex body of information.
 About 20 minutes presentation is usually required.
 An outline of what one is going to say includes
 Opening
 Findings and conclusions
 Recommendations

45. Briefings (presentation)
 The most important thing to keep in mind:
 The time will usually pass a lot more quickly than you
think
 Keep focused on the main ideas: The motivation, the
problem, and the main results
 You do not have to mention all of the difficulties and
shortcomings; people can ask during the presentation
 You do not need to mention response rates or sample size
misspecifications unless these are very important; people can
ask

46. Briefings (presentation)
 Organizing slides:
 A slide should contain a handful (25) of key points; it
should not fill the page
 Slides should not contain your entire presentation, just
the key things to remember
 Graphics can be useful if they tell the story