Plan Your Research

Issues to consider when planning your research or analyzing your data

The following general ideas are useful to review before planning your research or before analyzing your data.

General Issues

• What is the scientific question of interest?
• Do you plan to perform exploratory analyses, confirmatory analyses, or both?

Issues in the Design and Analysis of Experiments

• What is the experimental unit in your experiment?
• Will you have a priori contrasts to test?
• Will you use post hoc (multiple comparison) tests?
• Do you have unbalanced data?

Issues in the Design and Analysis of Surveys

• Are you planning to do a survey or a census?
• Have you budgeted the necessary resources to minimize non response?