This paper outlines the data analysis plan for the research topic: “How Do Social Determinants of Health among African Americans increase the Risk of Acquiring HIV/AIDS”. The major problem that the research seeks to find out is the exact social and behavioral issues afflicting African American individuals in my community and how these issues have led to the high cases of HIV among the individuals.
From the research objectives, the research will utilize primary data that will be collected through open-ended questionnaires and interviews. Thus, the information gathered will be qualitative since the variables will be non-quantifiable. The data will be assembled from all the areas where questionnaire were distributed as well as the recording devices. Computerized devices such as mobile phones will be the major tools in assembling the questionnaires and interviews. In the remote areas the questionnaires will be obtained through face-to-face means where assistants will be deployed to collect them.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
After assembling all the questionnaires and records, the first step will involve verification to ensure all questions are answered in accordance with the research requirement. As a quality check, questionnaires and recordings with irrelevancies will be separated from those with relevant data. Questionnaires with relevant data will be skimmed through to ensure that all questions are answered while recordings will be played. To address instances of non-response, a specific code will be assigned for every unanswered question to cater for proper data analysis. Accuracy will be verified through checking the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Notably, this will look out for individuals who answered the questionnaires yet were not part of the target population.
From this point, data from the questionnaires will be entered into specific software’s such as the Microsoft Excel or the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) among others. In this process, data that will be difficult in categorizing such as qualitative insights will be documented in a different data log. Notably, the variables will be the research question formulated in the preliminary steps of the research. All through, consistency of the answers with the research objectives will continuously be checked to ensure that the data set generated is harmonious.
After generating a harmonious data set, the next step will involve carrying out statistical tests. Since the research obtains qualitative data, the major statistical test will be on correlation coefficients to determine the existence of a relationship between the various variables and the research question. The strength of the relationship between variables will be asserted through application t-tests. The third test will involve chi- squares to determine the tests of independence among the variables tested in the research. Basically, these statistical tests will be testing the null hypothesis to determine if it holds or not which will in turn answer the research question.
In further analysis of the data, I will involve consultations with experts on data analysis since I am not well acquainted with analyzing qualitative data. Although I have the necessary information on entering data, I will require an expert’s guidance in decoding the data from the various devices such as laptops, smartphones and such like devices. I will also consult an expert in coding the data for ensuring that a harmonious data set is obtained.
In conclusion, having a data plan is crucial in guaranteeing accurate data analysis and coming up with reliable results. As discussed above, the data plan for my research will be focusing on three pertinent areas. These are; checking for accuracy, types of variable measurements being collected, statistical tests to be used to answer the research question and the need for consulting an expert in data analysis.
