In the information age, consumer data has never before been available in such large
quantities and in such diversified forms. This means that it has never been easier to generate
massive spreadsheets that contain equally massive quantities of data, some it useful, most of it
not so much. Thankfully, new data analytics software has made it easier than ever before to
quantify data, isolate statistically significant results, and use those results to make business
decisions.

I was unaware of the usefulness of data analytics software until I took a course at Saint
Vincent College under the title of BA 397 – Marketing Research. The class focused on a central
project, which was a semester-long marketing research project where we sought to gain insight
into some aspect of our school’s campus. My group chose to pursue assessing the attitudes
toward a hypothetical new fitness center on campus. Each of us had heard common sentiments
about the fitness center from word of mouth around campus, but there was no way for us to
back up student’s claims – we had no data.

After we defined the problem and developed a purpose for our research, our next order
of business was to conduct qualitative research. What criteria do students look for in a fitness
center? How do students evaluate the current facilities? What is the demographic and
psychographic profile of the current recreation center’s patrons? All of these were questions
we hoped to address in our focus groups.

After recruiting volunteers from other classes and holding two separate focus groups for
student-athletes and non-athletes, we used the students’ responses to construct a survey using
Qualtrics, a data-collection software. One of the prevailing topics of discussion among both
focus groups were the windows in the current recreation center. As it currently stands, the
fitness center has large, glass windows on both the outside and inside walls, allowing passers-
by to see everyone and everything inside the gym. The windows were a polarizing topic – some
students said that the windows were a positive addition to the gym because they helped to let
in additional sunlight and made the room feel larger. Others believed the windows to be a bit
uncomfortable, producing an effect that made patrons feel like they are in an “observation
tank.” So, how statistically significant were the student’s claims? To find out, we began
constructing a data-collection survey in Qualtrics.

Once the survey was constructed, it was distributed around campus via flyers with QR
codes printed on them. Our survey had a variety of question formats, the most common of
which was a five-point Likert scale, which allows survey respondents to rank their approval of a
given statement from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

One of our questions that utilized the Likert scale presented the survey respondents
with the statement, “The windows in the fitness center make me feel uncomfortable.” Survey
respondents were also asked to choose their gender in order for us to determine whether there
were significantly different attitudes between women and men in certain categories. When we
exported the data into SPSS, a data analytics software, we were able to translate the qualitative
data from the Qualtrics survey into quantitative data that we could use for our statistical tests.
The results revealed some interesting new information.

The above graph shows the combined attitudes of both genders concerning the
windows. This distribution is bi-modal – not a normal distribution, which meant that about half
of the respondents strongly disagreed with the statement while the approximated other half of
respondents tended to strongly agree with the statement. The windows in the fitness center
were revealed to be a polarizing issue. Thanks to the data analytics software, we were able to
discover even more information when we filtered the results by gender. Filtering the results by
“male” produced this graph:


The male survey respondents were statistically more likely to be in favor of the windows
in the fitness center. As you may expect, filtering results by “female” produced a near mirror-
image graph.



Compared to men, women statistically did not like the windows in the current fitness
center.

Because of the sentiments we heard during our focus groups, our team had suspected
that women were generally uncomfortable with the windows while men generally preferred
them. Now that we had analyze our quantitative data, we had the numbers to back up our
claims.
But why does this matter? Does the intimidation factor affect the amount of time
people spend in the fitness center? After running a statistical test called a one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA), we discovered that it does.



The uppermost circled number is a number known as the probability value, or more
simply, the p-value. Generally, in statistics, a null hypothesis is rejected if the p-value is greater
than 0.05. This low p-value produced by the test indicates that there is a significant correlation
between intimidation and time spent in the fitness center. This allowed us to come to the
conclusion indicated by the lower circled number, which is reported in fractions of an hour.
According to our test, for each additional “unit” of intimidation, patrons spent about 39 less
minutes in the gym! This is information that could not have been discovered with focus groups
alone, and it was satisfying to have new data that gave insights into the original claims of our
focus group.

Making sense of numbers can be a daunting task, but using data analytics software can
help aid in decision making by providing valuable insights into the community of our interest.

Not only can data analytics help to gauge attitudes and feelings toward certain things, but it can
also reveal new insights that were otherwise unknowable.
Does deciphering all of this data still seem difficult? Don’t hesitate to stop by the
chamber and talk with us about how you can use data analytics to make smart decisions and
gain insights. We might be able to help you – or help you find a member who can!