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arXiv · 2312.07616

Evaluating the Alignment of a Data Analysis between Analyst and Audience

Lucy D'Agostino McGowan·Roger D. Peng·Stephanie C. Hicks
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Abstract

A challenge that data analysts face is building a data analysis that is useful for a given consumer. Previously, we defined a set of principles for describing data analyses that can be used to create a data analysis and to characterize the variation between analyses. Here, we introduce a concept that we call the alignment of a data analysis between the data analyst and a consumer. We define a successfully aligned data analysis as the matching of principles between the analyst and the consumer for whom the analysis is developed. In this paper, we propose a statistical model for evaluating the alignment of a data analysis and describe some of its properties. We argue that this framework provides a language for characterizing alignment and can be used as a guide for practicing data scientists and students in data science courses for how to build better data analyses.

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Lucy D'Agostino McGowan, Roger D. Peng, Stephanie C. Hicks. 2023-12-11. Evaluating the Alignment of a Data Analysis between Analyst and Audience. https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.07616

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