An introduction to research for primary dental care clinicians part 8: stage 9. Analysing the data.

Abstract

Introduction: This paper, the eighth in the series, will address the ninth stage of a research project suggested in the first paper. The ten suggested stages are: 1. The initial idea (asking a research question). 2. Searching the literature. 3. Refining the research question. 4. Planning the study. 5. Writing a protocol. 6. Obtaining ethics approval and funding. 7. Piloting the project and project management. 8. Collecting data. 9. Analysing the data. 10. Writing up and disseminating the results. The previous paper outlined how to collect data during a research project. The next stage is to analyse the data that have been collected. This paper briefly introduces readers to data analysis and basic statistics. It updates the Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) research advice sheets: Introduction to Statistics, Statistics for Research, Testing for Statistical Significance.