Kensington Research Institute

Services -- Part 3

Analysis and Conclusions

Once your work in the field is well underway or has been completed, it is time to find out what lessons can be learned from your work and what you can tell other professionals based on your experiences.  Toward that end, KRI offers "tail end" services that are designed to help you and your funding agency get the most "bang for the buck."  We offer assistance with data analysis; the preparation of paper presentations, publishable articles, and reports; and peer review and critique of your project-related written products.  For more information about these particular services, see below. 

 

Statistical Analysis of Data

           The staff at KRI has had an extensive history of collaborating with evaluation

              researchers, project directors, and principal investigators to analyze their data

             and help them learn more about what their projects have accomplished. 

             Oftentimes, we are called upon and hired when a project has been completed

             and the key personnel want to know what their questionnaire data show--that is,

             what the data show the answers to their main research questions to be.  Usually,

             this process begins by having the assigned KRI staff member meet with the key

             players on the researcher's team, to learn more about the study, what it did, how

             it operated, and what its main goals were.  A review of the available data ensues,

             so that the KRI staff member can see what types of questions were asked, how

             the data were collected, how questions could be answered, and so forth.  Then,

             in collaboration with the research team members, KRI develops specific,

             measurable research and/or evaluation-related questions that can be answered

             by conducting specific statistical analyses.  From there, subject to the research

             team's approval, the analytical process can begin.

             Sometimes, this may entail providing descriptive data, so that the researchers can

             find out specifically who took part in their project or received their project's

             services (i.e., how many men versus how many women, what proportion were

             Caucasian versus African American or Latino, etc.), what project locales enrolled

             what "types" of people (e.g., more women enrolled uptown, more public

             assistance recipients participated at one project site than at another one), which

             of the services offered were provided to the largest number of eligible recipients,

             and so forth.

             In other instances, the statistical analysis may be more complex in nature.  Here,

             KRI can help you to frame your principal research and evaluation questions in

             ways that can be measured and examined with your available data.  Once your

             main research and evaluation questions have been established, we can examine

             the data that you have collected and determine the best approach and most

             appropriate analyses that can be used to answer those questions.  KRI's

             experienced researchers have done extensive statistical analysis work over the

             years, and this has included both "simple" statistics and multivariate analytical

             work.  Whether you have categorical data measures that lend themselves

             primarily to straightforward chi-square tests or continuous measures that are

             better suited to regression equations, whether you want to develop and test the

             "fitness" of a path model approach, whether you want to conduct an in-depth

             examination of the varied factors that influence a particular outcome such that

             multiple regression is well-suited to your needs, KRI can help you with the

             statistical analysis of your data.

 

Article / Report Writing  &  Article / Report Reviews

            In addition to the many ways in which KRI can help you to plan and carry out

             your research and evaluation projects, we can also be of tremendous assistance

             when it comes to writing up your findings.  Our research staff has had a great deal

             of experience preparing papers for presentation at professional conferences,

             writing articles for publication in scholarly journals, and summarizing

             accomplishments in quarterly and annual project/progress reports intended for

             submission to funding agencies.  We could collaborate with you to take an idea of

             something you want to examine with your data all the way from "fleshing out" the

             rudimentary aspects of the issue/question, through the data analysis phase

             through the literature review and summary phase, to the writing-up and revision

             phase.  In the end, there would be a complete article ready for submission for

             consideration for publication.  Likewise, we could help you to complete the

             reports necessary to satisfy your particular funding agency's questions and needs,

             based on your project's accomplishments and main findings.

             Perhaps, rather than working collaboratively in the development of these papers,

             articles, and reports, you would, instead, prefer to do the leg work yourself and

             write these papers and reports yourself, but still want the benefit of a

             pre-submission peer review process, to identify problems that you did not foresee

             when you wrote the document in question.  KRI could serve as a professional

             sounding board for you, reviewing your work and providing you with a critique

             based on that review.  In that manner, you would maximize your chances of

             having your paper accepted for presentation or publication, or would be able to

             submit a more-highly-polished project report to your funding agency.  You might

             think of the service being offered here as being similar to the proposal "red

             teaming" mentioned earlier...but in a slightly different context here.