How do you extract meaningful statistics?

[KatyMac]

I found a website it has lots of useful stats on it for my nursery idea

But I don't know how/what to extract

I have employed a youngster who seems technically able but the brief is a bit vague - how do I narrow it down?

Or maybe I should pay someone professional to do it?

What do you call a professional data manipulator?

You have to start by thinking what the question is - eg What proportion of parents like X? or How many parents who like X also do Y? and then find the data to try to answer it.

What kinds of things do you want to find out from the stats?

I guess I want to find out how much childcare provision there is in an area - plus how many children there are & how many access it

And what kind of info is on the website? Is it broken down by area or would you have to work out which entries are in the area you want to cover? I'd be happy to take a look if you can give a link.

I think 'meaningful' and 'statistics' are a contradiction in terms?

statistics are only useful if they actually show what you want them to show (which they rarely do - statistics aren't usually inaccurate, but people, especially jounralists very often interpret them inaccurately).

so it depends what you want to know and what the statistics are really.

it's here

there seems to be loads

The problem is (I guess) that I want it to show whther it's a good idea to open a nursery in a village call Repps-with-Bastwick

Which is on routes to & from Great Yarmouth, Caister, Martham, Acle, Fleggburgh, Stalham, Pottem Heigham, Ludham, Catfield, Horning, Wroxham & maybe even Norwich - which is a bit of a tall order to be honest

well unless the stats are a survey which asks parents if they would use childcare but currently can't, I'm not sure you'll get any joy. number of children doesn't necessarily reflect number of childcare places needed.

I think a survey would be a better way to find that out - is there an M&T group in the area?

The site doesn't seem to have anything which would tell you that I'm afraid.

Oh poop

What about numbers of children? & Numbers of working parents?

I agree SP - but there aren't any

but the working parents will already have childcare. it doesn't tell you about the parents who would work if they could (the ones you're interested in). is there a local shop / newsletter?

A professional data manipulator would be a market researcher, maybe?

Could you not look at the Ofsted website to see who provides child care in the area you are interested in? You can put in a postcode and get a list of all Ofsted registered childcare within a 5, 10 or 20 mile radius. This would tell you the maximum amount they are allowed to look after at any one time. That would give you your total number of places available in the area.

How many they actually fill on any given day would be difficult to find out because it would fluctuate.

Doesn't help with how many children there are in the area. I wonder if you could ask the County Council Early Childcare unit or Ofsted if there was a need for more places in your area.

Pavlov stole my line.

It's a very wide geographical area - SenoraPostrophe - but it's on several commuter routes

The CIS website gives that info - well who the providers are anyway

The OFSTED website might be a better bet

I asked the Early years team & they gave me the website (which is why I thought the info was there )