Analysing equality monitoring data
Diversity or equality monitoring data must be properly analysed if they are to be used as a basis for effective action planning.
Statistical analysis can be used for a variety of purposes, for example
- looking at patterns of outcomes for different groups (for example scores in assessment centre exercises, proportions whose applications for a job or a service are successful, or proportions targeted for enforcement action)
- judging whether apparent disparities – say in selection rates for different groups - are ‘real’, or may be the result of chance variations
- analysing the contribution of different factors to particular outcomes, to assess, for example, whether ethnic differences in performance markings are attributable to differences in age or grade distributions, or whether ethnicity itself seems to play a part
- analysing changes in patterns over time
We can:
- advise on what kind of analysis might be appropriate or feasible for a particular data set
- carry out some analyses for you, using statistical software into which data in a wide range of formats can be easily read
- suggest further quantitative and/or qualitative analyses may be needed to shed further light on issues/questions thrown up by the initial analysis
- carry out qualitative reviews, for example of performance appraisal reports, to investigate underlying causes of observed patterns.
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