Do you believe in magic? Maybe, maybe not. Do you believe in magical analyses when it comes to your research? Definitely not. And you shouldn’t. Statistical models are so often seen as “black box” analysis techniques where, perhaps due to a lower level of understanding, researchers often accept results without questioning. On the flip side, statisticians are often completely unaware of the research context of data, and accept them from researchers without questioning. Here, I explain why this can be the beginning of the end for your insights.

1. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner
Mustard Research

2. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
“
“You don’t need to know what the
questions are. You have the data.”
“I’m a statistician, I don’t
get involved in the fluffy
research-y side of things.”
“I just model the data. It’s up
to them to decide what to do
with it, or what it means…”
“Don’t think about them as
respondents, or participants. They’re
just data points at this stage.”

3. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
The ‘black box’ approach
Input
Black box
Output
The "black box" portion of the system contains formulas and calculations
that the user does not see nor need to know to use the system.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackbox.asp

4. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
An alterna@ve approach
Research StaAsAcs

5. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
The common sense test
Research StaAsAcs
If you don’t check if the data
is correct, you won’t know!

6. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Similarly, if you don’t check if the outputs
make “common sense”, you wont know!

7. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
A recommended approach
Research StaAsAcs
• Iterative procedure
• Research and
statistics should agree
at each stage
• Researchers and
statisticians should
agree at each stageYou don’t need team members that are experts in
both fields. You do need experts in both fields able
to explain the work in layman’s terms.

8. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Close call #1
International data hadn’t been investigated to
determine whether or not it should be standardised.
Segments would have
ended up being
countries

9. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Close call #2
One segment generally scored lower than others across the board
This segment was not rejected
after investigation of other
results from qualitative research.
The low scoring segment was
genuinely based on insight.

10. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
“Life is not just a series of calculations and a sum
total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about
participation, it is something more complex and
more interesting than what is obvious.”
Daniel Libeskind

11. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Thank You!
Bethan Turner
Mustard Research
hGps://twiGer.com/MustardBethan
hBps://uk.linkedin.com/in/bethanturner

12. Do you believe in magic?
Bethan Turner, Mustard Research
Festival of
#NewMR 2017
Q & A
Bethan Turner
Mustard Research
BeBy Adamou
Research Through Gaming