Principles of Statistics in Respiratory Research: Part 2. Research Design: Establishing the Research Objective and Determining the Type of Data to Collect

Abstract

A clear understanding of the research objective is the first step in a research project. After the objective is clearly defined, a research design can be developed to achieve the objective. The first design consideration is to determine what measurements will be collected. The four types of measurements are termed nominal, ordinal, discrete, and continuous. The researcher must be able to identify these in order to choose the correct statistical analysis to carry out.