Colin elaborates in the forth part of his textbook the analysis stage for both quantitative and qualitative data. Colin gives a general introduction to readers about the Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) and some of the statistical methods that researchers should be aware of it whenever they start their research. Selecting which method to use shouldn’t be arbitrary. However, researchers need to keep in mind the type of research questions they are attempting to answer before selecting the analysis method. After researchers collect their data, they start the data analysis process. Data analysis is divided into two types, exploratory and confirmatory. Exploratory analysis is the one that explores and reveals what the collected data imply, while the confirmatory analysis is the one that establishes whether the researcher got what he/she was expecting to find.

Analyzing qualitative data depends to a great extent on the analyst himself. Colin gives in chapter fourteen an overview for the NUD*IST approach for qualitative data analysis. He also gives a quick insight on NVivo which is the new version of NUD*IST. The main problem that encounters the researcher in qualitative studies is how to confirm his/her findings from the qualitative data? Miles and Huberman answered this question in chapter fourteen where they suggested thirteen tactics for assessing the quality of qualitative data analysis in box.14.9 in page 483. I found this box a very useful reference for researchers to keep in mind whenever they are working on qualitative research. At the end, researchers need to make their research public. At this point, the researchers start the reporting stage where the researcher communicates his/her findings with others (audience) within and outside the field. In this part, Colin emphasized the importance of considering the audience and following the format that most of journals follow to publish papers. Colin gives a checklist for that format in box15.1 in page 505 in his book. I found this box very useful for readers including me because it serves as guidelines for writing a report.

On the whole, I found Colin’s book (Real World Research) very interesting book and it is easy to read. Colin sheds the light on many critical subjects that researchers especially the beginners need to be aware of before starting research to avoid the mistakes that some researchers were trapped in it.