Sometimes Students get tripped up over the language we use that either has a specific meaning for research that is different from the research of the world.  Other times, we use terms within the research world to mean different things at different times.  One of those terms is "Question".  What is your research question? Versus: What question are you wanting to answer?

The research question is the global thing we want to discover or do with our research.  That often takes answering a number of sub-questions.   When we are making decisions about which statistics test to use, it is those sub-questions we want to answer.

Those Sub-Questions usually fall into one of two types: Differences Questions or Relationship/linkage questions

Differences: Testing between Groups

Example: Male Social Workers will score differently than Female Social Workers on the Perception of Safety Question on our Survey.

if you are testing the difference between groups or samples then:

1. If your data is parametric (normally distributed)
   1. Click Here
2. If your data is not normally distributed (Nonparametric)
   1. Click Here

Relationships: What is the relationship or correlation between two variables or samples

Examples: More years in the Social Work field will be related to a greater Perception of Safety, based on the answers on our survey. or Males will be more likely than Females to have taken Self-Defense Training.

if you are testing the relationship between groups

Click Here