Unit Of Analysis - Research Methods Knowledge Base - Conjointly

Popular searches

• How to Get Participants For Your Study
• How to Do Segmentation?
• Conjoint Preference Share Simulator
• MaxDiff Analysis
• Likert Scales
• Reliability & Validity

Request consultation

Do you need support in running a pricing or product study? We can help you with agile consumer research and conjoint analysis.

Request consultation

Looking for an online survey platform?

Conjointly offers a great survey tool with multiple question types, randomisation blocks, and multilingual support. The Basic tier is always free.

Get started for freeBack

Research Methods Knowledge Base

by Prof William M.K. Trochim hosted by Conjointly

• Navigating the Knowledge Base
• Foundations
  • Language Of Research
    • Five Big Words
    • Types of Research Questions
    • Time in Research
    • Types of Relationships
    • Variables
    • Hypotheses
    • Types of Data
    • Unit of Analysis
    • Two Research Fallacies
  • Philosophy of Research
  • Ethics in Research
  • Conceptualizing
  • Evaluation Research
• Sampling
• Measurement
• Research Design
• Analysis
• Write-Up
• Appendices
• Table of Contents

Insights Explorer AI assistant

Analyse your data through everyday language with Insights Explorer's AI assistant, converting your natural language requests into executable R code for data analysis and visualisation, right in your browser.

The Insights Explorer is available for free and does not require a Conjointly account.

Start now View details List of articles BackUnit of Analysis

One of the most important ideas in a research project is the unit of analysis. The unit of analysis is the major entity that you are analyzing in your study. For instance, any of the following could be a unit of analysis in a study:

• individuals
• groups
• artifacts (books, photos, newspapers)
• geographical units (town, census tract, state)
• social interactions (dyadic relations, divorces, arrests)

Why is it called the ‘unit of analysis’ and not something else (like, the unit of sampling)? Because it is the analysis you do in your study that determines what the unit is. For instance, if you are comparing the children in two classrooms on achievement test scores, the unit is the individual child because you have a score for each child. On the other hand, if you are comparing the two classes on classroom climate, your unit of analysis is the group, in this case the classroom, because you only have a classroom climate score for the class as a whole and not for each individual student. For different analyses in the same study you may have different units of analysis. If you decide to base an analysis on student scores, the individual is the unit. But you might decide to compare average classroom performance. In this case, since the data that goes into the analysis is the average itself (and not the individuals’ scores) the unit of analysis is actually the group. Even though you had data at the student level, you use aggregates in the analysis. In many areas of social research these hierarchies of analysis units have become particularly important and have spawned a whole area of statistical analysis sometimes referred to as hierarchical modeling. This is true in education, for instance, where we often compare classroom performance but collected achievement data at the individual student level.

Next topic

Cookie Consent

Conjointly uses essential cookies to make our site work. We also use additional cookies in order to understand the usage of the site, gather audience analytics, and for remarketing purposes.

For more information on Conjointly's use of cookies, please read our Cookie Policy.

Operation (essential cookies) Analytics cookiesConfirm choicesAccept All

Which one are you?

×

I am new to Conjointly

(I want a demo or to chat about a new project.)

I am already using Conjointly

(I have questions about the tools or my project.)

We (Conjointly) collect your personal details and other information in accordance with the Conjointly Privacy Notice. It is needed to talk to you via teleconference and subsequent communications. If you don’t provide this information, we may not be able to talk to you. You have rights to correct your information, to make a complaint, and other rights, as per the Privacy Notice.

Contact Support

×

Please describe your question or issue in detail, and we typically respond within the next day or so.

Email address * Subject * Message*

We (Conjointly) collect your personal details and other information in accordance with the Conjointly Privacy Notice. It is needed to process your request and subsequent communications. If you don’t provide this information, we may not be able to process your request. You have rights to correct your information, to make a complaint, and other rights, as per the Privacy Notice.

Thank you! Your email support request has been submitted successfully. The Conjointly team will get back to you within a few days.

An error occurred while submitting your request. Please contact [email protected] directly.Cancel SendClose Webinar starting soon! ×Join the webinar "" in . Planned maintenance ××