All payments for work done on your proposal are due at the end of the month that the work was completed; payments for our services are independent from the grant being rewarded.

Please either call (800) 806-5661 or (972) 538-1374 and speak with the billing department, or you may send an e-mail to billing@eliteresearch.com. All e-mails are answered within 24 business hours.

While we prefer that you pay your balance in full, we understand that it is not always possible. Therefore, we offer flexible arrangements. Please contact billing@eliteresearch.com to set up a payment plan.

Anything that takes less time than the amount estimated is not charged to you. You are only billed for time actually needed to complete the work. Sometimes, there is time for additional analyses to answer additional questions you have is not included in the estimate. In addition, phone and in-person meetings are generally not included in the estimate and are billed hourly.

There are no extra hidden fees. While some types of work are hourly, such as editing and phone/in-person meetings, most project work falls into phases. Each phase of your project is estimated and you are in constant communication regarding the process. However, estimates only cover the specific work estimated. If you ask for additional work, you will receive a separate estimate to cover the additional work.

Because we want you to be involved in the research process, we do not take your project, run the analyses and write up the results, and hand them back to you. While some work is hourly, we give you an estimate and an explanation for each phase of the project. You are also provided with a list of options for the statistical explanation portion so that you remain in control of your project.

Yes, however the amount varies depending on service type; your unique deposit information will be included in your engagement letter. Generally, deposits range from between $150-$300 for domestic clients and between $300-$500 for international clients. In the event that you do not use your entire deposit, we will send you a check for the difference within 30 days upon completion of your project. Please keep in mind, however, that you will need to approve any and all work by signing an estimate letter before work can begin.

No. We only charge for services that have been performed. We bill monthly via e-mail unless you request otherwise.

We charge $45-$65/hr. We do not charge by the page as we have found that it is more cost effective for our clients to charge by the hour.

The free initial review includes a meeting to discuss your needs and our services, as well a review of any project-related files you may have (up to 1.5 hours).

Yes. Your consultant sits down with you to note the various changes that the committee requires. He/she also helps you write a response back to your committee members regarding those changes. It is exceptionally rare that a document is approved as originally presented to the committee for defense.

Yes. You should expect some changes to your defense document after your dissertation defense. Committee members may want some additional analyses based on your findings. They may also want more tables or even fewer tables. While there are typical layouts for dissertations, each committee is different; thus it is difficult to predict what each unique committee will want as part of your final document.

We often hold mock dissertation presentations in which you can present your defense to not only your consultant, but also to other statisticians and analysts at Elite Research. We propose questions to you that your committee members may ask. We also provide you with feedback on how to answer particular questions or how to present your findings.

Our statisticians conduct a full examination of your data set, including looking for any potential significant relationships between all of the variables. It is important for any data analyses to look for potential covariates that may ultimately affect your primary analyses and hypotheses. We also look for any potential issues with your variables that may affect your results. You and your advisor should determine which of these tables you want to include in the final document.

As part of the services we offer at Elite Research, your consultant sits down with you one-on-one to explain general statistical terminology and analyses, as well as questions that are specific to your project. He/she explains these to you, but in a language that is easy to understand and remember. We do not want you to go into your defense and simply say: “My statistician told me to do it this way.” At Elite Research, we want you to understand what your results say and what this means to the overall project. It is our goal to educate future researchers.

After receiving your documentation, we review your proposal and any other materials to make a list of questions, research questions, and hypotheses that are for your unique project. At that time, as part of the first phase of your project, we send you an estimate of hours to thoroughly examine your data to test for assumptions, look for outliers, and conduct any data preparation or data cleaning. Included in this estimate is a proposed analysis plan and proposed table outline. Be sure to review the planned analyses and table outline with your major professor. The second phase of the project involves actually creating the syntax for your project, conducting the analyses, and writing up your results in layman’s terminology. As with the first phase, you receive an estimate for this phase. Finally, we provide you with several options and estimates on wording and presentation of the statistics that are reported in the results section of your paper.

Editing is a process. That is why we encourage you to submit it to us chapter by chapter. We make the changes we can, but most often there is still work to be done on your end. As our consultants edit your document, we note any issues that only you as the author are able to address, such as additional citation information for the reference section (excluding DOIs), portions of chapters that require further development, etc. You are welcome to resubmit the document to us for another review after you have made changes.

As all of our editing and formatting is done to the best of our abilities, any errors that we miss will be fixed free of charge. However, if no university template is turned in with your chapter/document, we are not responsible for university formatting errors.

Please contact us to see if we would have the time to do a “rush” edit. Depending on the time of year and our editing load at that time, we may be able to accommodate you. It doesn’t hurt to ask!

Any changes we make are in red font. If something needs to be changed that cannot be indicated in red font we use a comment bubble on the side of the document. We do not use track changes as we have found that using track changes can disrupt the overall formatting of the document, especially where widows/orphans are concerned.

No. Due to ethical consideration, your statistical consultant may not write your methods chapter or your discussion chapter. He/she can evaluate the chapters to ensure that you are on the right track. In fact, we encourage you to have your consultant review these chapters for statistical accuracy and to provide feedback and comments that will help you finalize these chapters. Your statistical consultant may also help you with your planned analyses section.

No. We do not write theses or dissertations. We are happy to read over the document and give you edits and/or suggestions, but the writing must be your own. We can assist you with the appropriate wording and the presentation of statistics that are reported in the results section of your paper, but, again, we do not write theses or dissertations.

A statistical consultant can be invaluable at the planning stage of a research project. At Elite Research, a statistical consultant looks over your project for any potential statistical or design issues. Often, simple changes to survey items or methodology can save much time and effort later on. You also get to know your statistical consultant, and he/she is able to review your project and give it the hands-on attention it deserves.

We primarily collect online or archival data for clients, but we can also assist you with interviews, focus groups, and field collection. For online data collection, we use various online survey tools to create and host surveys online, send out invitations to participate using panel companies and convenience samples, monitor data collection, and download and clean data. We have also collected data for projects that analyze data from national and international databases (i.e. World Bank, Census Bureau, etc.) and other public and historical data (i.e. stock prices over time, meta-analytic literature reviews and coding). Please contact us to discuss your specific data collection needs. Be sure to check with your advisors on how much help you are allowed to receive with this phase of your project.

Yes. Elite Research has helped clients with mixed methods dissertations (i.e., quantitative analyses supported by qualitative questions) and qualitative dissertations. We understand and use various qualitative methodologies (e.g., grounded theory, phenomenology).

In your initial meeting with us, we ask you to disclose all deadlines involved in your project. This may include the final deadline and/or dates that your document needs to be submitted (to advisors, committee members, journals, etc.). We make every effort to help you get your work done by your deadline.

Chances are that at least one of our consultants has experience with the software that you are using. If a situation arises that calls for other software use, we would be happy to meet and discuss the project and software with you to determine the best way to move forward.

We primarily use LISREL for modeling. However, we also use other software, such as MPlus, when dictated by the data or by the client.

All of our statisticians and analysts routinely use SPSS and LISREL for statistical analysis. In addition, all of our statisticians have training and experience in one or more additional softwares, such as SAS, SYSTAT, EQS, MPlus, R, WarpPLS, SmartPLS, AMOS, and Excel.

Yes. If your data is in Excel formatting, we are able to import this data into the statistical software needed for your project.

Please visit our Consultants page for more information on some analyses we frequently conduct.

We are familiar with a wide array of statistics, including nonparametric statistics and single case analyses. We can walk you through other potential options to help you best answer your research questions, using the data that you do have. We can also provide you with strategies for increasing your sample size during collection.

We are happy to go through the research questions with you. After understanding the variables involved in your project, we can talk you through the statistical analyses that you will need to answer your questions. In some cases, several analyses may be appropriate to answer your questions. We talk through the options with you to help you make the best decision possible based on the specific details of your project.

For clients who come to us before beginning data collection, we verify that the sample size you plan to collect will be adequate to conduct the analyses needed to address your research questions.

Yes. Different analyses have different effect sizes. Some are a part of the statistic themselves (i.e. correlation coefficient), and others must be calculated separately (Cohen’s d). We run the effect sizes for your results and help you interpret them as well.

At Elite Research, we want to do a thorough examination of your data, so we do conduct multiple types of analyses. We conduct crosstabulations and correlations to examine the relationships between variables to look for potential covariates. We also typically conduct analyses of variance, Multivariate Analyses of Variance, Multiple Linear and Multiple Logistic Regressions. We also know how to conduct nonparametric testing of your data, if it is warranted. Your consultant examines your unique project and data to determine what analyses are necessary for your dissertation or research project.

Yes, we have experienced grant writers who work with you on designing the best proposal possible. In addition, the statistical consultants often write the methodology, analysis plans, and timelines for grant proposals.

Ideally, clients come to us with plenty of time to go back and forth on the work and receive input from all parties involved. However, we understand that this is not always possible. Deadlines change, crises happen, or other things occur that require immediate attention. We make every effort to meet every deadline; however, we must also be realistic in order to give each project the time and attention it deserves. Because we have a team of consultants with flexible schedules, we may be able to help complete your project within a quick turnaround time. Although we cannot promise that we will always be available to help you at the last minute, please feel free to contact us to ask about the possibilities.

We offer both in-office lab hours (where you can work at one of our computers with access to our statistical software and a consultant answer questions) and regular statistics workshops.

We understand that our clients are very busy attending school and often working at the same time. We routinely meet with clients in the evenings and on weekends. Please do not hesitate to ask us to meet with you at a time that is convenient for you.

Yes. We do not share your data and/or results outside of Elite Research. We have non-disclosure agreements available for additional protection.