Analysing data and reporting results

In this stage, you educate your reader on what you’ve found and take them through how you’ve turned data into knowledge, which involves making reasoned connections between variables or different parts of the data. Reporting your results and analysis requires summarising key points or patterns in the data and how they’ve emerged.

Choose representative information

• Use only representative data and analyses to demonstrate the validity of your results.
• Decide what to include by asking:
  • What qualifies as representative data and why?
  • What does it represent?
  • How do I know if the representation is complete and correct?

Organise the information

• Capture categories or themes in the data that relate to your research question or hypothesis.
• Add informative headings and subheadings to help the reader navigate your results.

Illustrate your results

• Design any tables and figures to be understandable on their own and complementary to your writing, with clear, informative titles. These should illustrate the key evidence to support your results and make them easier for readers to process.
• When using tables and figures, think about:
  • whether they are necessary, and
  • which type of illustration best suits the information.
    For example, if some qualitative information is best explained in a paragraph with a subheading, you may not need a table or figure at all. On the other hand, to compare the trends of two variables over time, a line graph will be useful.

State the new knowledge

• Begin every data chapter with a statement of purpose.
• End it with a statement of how the purpose has been addressed, highlighting the new knowledge generated by the chapter.

Example statement of purpose - chapter introduction

The aim of this study was to understand the role of group singing in inpatient and community mental health settings in regard to the contextual and conditional factors apparent within these settings which contribute to mental health recovery. (Bibb, 2016, p. 139)

Example statement of new knowledge - chapter conclusion

Findings were presented as a grounded theory of group singing which was described as the way consumers can experience triggering encounters with music in their singing group and use the group conditions as coping resources to regain musical, emotional and social health. (Bibb, 2016, p. 211)

Start early and revise regularly

• Start writing your data chapters early in your data collection and analysis and review them regularly to:
  • Evolve your analytical categories or themes
  • Reflect on the new knowledge these chapters produce
  • Recognise, rectify or acknowledge limitations in your data or results.
  • Assess the validity and reliability of this knowledge: is it warranted by the nature of the data? Does it align with the aim and methods? Is the analytical process rigorous enough?

Use the side menu to go the next section: Synthesising and discussing findings, where we explore approaches to putting your results together.