Bivariate and Multivariate Analysis - Know The Difference Between Them

When it comes to analyzing the data, there is nothing more important than understanding it and drawing a logical conclusion. It would help if you defined the purpose of your data analysis to use the time productively and dictate the data analysis's direction. Therefore, there are numerous methods, tools, and techniques to carry out the data analysis. There are three distinct data analysis techniques in statistics: univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis. Briefly, it depends on the number of variables and data types in selecting a specific data technique. In this article, we will talk about the difference between bivariate and multivariate analysis.

Types of Variables:

Before finding the differences between bivariate and multivariate, it is essential to glance at the different types of variables. The following are the types of variables:

Categorical Variables:

Categorical variables are those variables that have a countable number of categories or different groups. To illustrate this point, we can consider gender, method of payment, horoscope, etc. These variables have limited and countable classes.

Numerical Variables:

Numerical variables are those variables that comprise numbers. There are two main categories of numerical variables.

Discrete Variables:

These variables are those that can take specific and finite values. For example, number of students in a class, number of failed students, numerical grades, etc.

Continuous Variables:

These variables are infinite in numbers. For example, weight, height, temperature, date and time of payment, etc.

Data analysis has paramount importance in a research study. It is the crux of your extensive and prolonged research study. It is the statistical representation of the critical finding of your research. For this purpose, you can also use various visualization and statistic testing method to make it interactive and inferable. There is no use for the data if people cannot understand your data analysis. Following is the detailed account of differences between bivariate and multivariate:

 

Bivariate Analysis:

According to a dissertation writing service, bivariate analysis is a technique that uses two distinct variables to analyze the data. You compare these two variables to find a relationship. You conduct the analysis with a pair of observations taken from a single sample. It is a little bit more analytical and comprehensive technique than the univariate technique of data analysis. These can be dependent or independent variables depending on the needs of the research study. Most of the time, you graph the pair of variables on a scatter plot if the variables are quantitative. It says that there is a Y-value for every X-value. It assists in examining the strength of any correlation. You can also use tools like t-tests and chi-squared tests to check the correlation between two variables. Furthermore, regression plots and correlation coefficients are also expected to analyze the relation between two variables.

 

Bivariate Analysis Examples:

Example 1:

Collecting the age of both husband and wife in a single marriage can help find the correlation between variables. The data is relevant as the age is coming from the same wedding. However, age is an independent variable as the age of one a husband will not affect the wife's age and vice versa. Therefore, you can plot the graph showing the correlation between them. For instance, it can conclude that older husbands have older wives and younger husbands have younger wives.

Example 2:

It is essential to have another example to understand the multivariate analysis to clear the clouds of confusion. So you can consider recording the measurement of grip strength and are the strength of a group of individuals. It aims to find any relationship between these variables. The data is corresponding as both measurements are taken from the same person. You can plot the values of several values to find the relation between two variables. For instance, it can conclude that people with higher grip strength have the higher arm strength.

Multivariate Analysis:

Multivariate analysis is a data analysis technique that uses multiple variables to find any relationship between them. It tries to extract the one or numerous predictive outcomes of the analysis. The predictive variables are independent, whereas the results can be dependent variables. In addition, these variables can be continuous, which means they can have a range of values or categorical variables. In other words, it can also be dichotomous, which means it can have closed-ended answers such as yes or no. You can use multiple regressions to find the correlations between data sets. It is the most widely used technique of data analysis. The most common methods used in multivariate data analysis are following:

• Factor Analysis
• Cluster Analysis
• Variance Analysis
• Discriminant Analysis
• Multidimensional Scaling
• Principal Component Analysis
• Redundancy Analysis

Multivariate Analysis Example:

Research can examine the relations between adverse life events, family environment, family violence, media violence, and depression in giving impetus to youth regression and bullying. Here we can see that there are multiple variables. We can categorize adverse life events, family environment, family violence, media violence, and depression as independent variables. On the other hand, bullying and regression can be considered as the dependent variables and outcomes. A survey can be distributed to a large population to determine the predictor variable for each person. A survey can also be used to determine any relationship between these variables. The results will determine that what variables are resulting in bullying and regression. It can generate a comprehensive correlation between multiple variables.

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The Bottom Line:

To conclude, researchers use the bivariate analysis technique for two variables, whereas the multivariate analysis technique has more than two variables. These variables can be distinct in type and category. It depends on the purpose of the researcher and the type of data collection. However, there are stark differences between bivariate and multivariate analysis. These differences must be taken into account before starting the data analysis. It needs to remember that multivariate analysis requires analyzing the relationship between more than two variables, whereas bivariate analysis requires gauging the correlation between two variables. Hence, you must know the difference between bivariate and multivariate analysis.