Lesson 1 : Characteristics, Strengths, Weaknesses, Kinds of Quantitative Research

Quantitative research designs use numbers in stating generalizations about a given problem or
inquiry in contrast to qualitative research that hardly uses statistical treatment in stating
generalizations.

These numbers are the results of objective scales of measurements of the units of analysis
called variables.

Research findings are subjected to statistical treatment to determine significant relationships or

differences between variables, the results of which are the bases for generalization about
phenomena.

Characteristics of Quantitative Research

 Methods or procedures of data gathering include items like age, gender, educational status,
among others, that call for measurable characteristics of the population.
 Standardized instruments guide data collection, thus, ensuring the accuracy, reliability and
validity of data.
 Figures, tables or graphs showcase summarized data collected in order to show trends,
relationships or differences among variables. In sum, the charts and tables allow you to see
the evidence collected.
 ·A large population yields more reliable data, but principles of random sampling must be strictly
followed to prevent researcher's bias.
 Quantitative methods can be repeated to verify findings in another setting, thus, reinforcing
validity of findings.
 Quantitative research puts emphasis on proof, rather than discovery.

Just like qualitative research, quantitative research has its own set of strengths, as well as
weaknesses.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Quantitative Research

 ·Strengths

Quantitative research design is the most reliable and valid way of concluding results, giving way to
a new hypothesis or to disproving it.

Because of a bigger number of the sample of a population, the results or generalizations are more
reliable and valid.

Quantitative experiments filter out external factors, if properly designed, and so the results gained
can be seen, as real and unbiased. Quantitative experiments are useful for testing the results gained
by a series of qualitative experiments, leading to a final answer, and a narrowing down of possible
directions to follow.(https://explorable.com/ quantitativ-research-design)

 Weaknesses

 Quantitative research can be costly, difficult and time-consuming-difficult because most

researchers are non-mathematicians.
 Quantitative studies require extensive statistical treatment, requiring stringent standards,
more so with confirmation of results. When ambiguities in some findings surface, retesting
and refinement of the design call for another investment in time and resources to polish the
results.
 Quantitative methods also tend to turn out only proved or unproven results, leaving little
room for uncertainty, or grey areas. For the social sciences, education, anthropology and
psychalogy, human nature is a lot more complex than just a simple yes or no response.
(https://explorable.com/quantitative-research-design.)
 Kinds of Quantitative Research Designs

Research design refers to the overall strategy that you choose in order to integrate the different
components of the study in a coherent and logical way, thereby ensuring you will effectively address
the research problem. Furthermore, a research design constitutes the blueprint for the selection,
measurement and analysis of data. The research problem determines the research design you
should use.
Quantitative methods emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or
numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating
pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques.
Quantitative research designs are generally classified experimental and non-experimental as the
following matrix shows:

Experimental research design allows the researcher to control the situation. In so doing. it allows
the researcher lo answer the question, "What causes something to occur?" This kind of research also
allows the researcher to identify cause and effect relationships between variables and lo distinguish
placebo effects from treatment effects. Further, this research design supports the ability to limit
alternative explanations and to infer direct causal relationships in the study; the approach provides
the highest level of evidence for single studies.
Pre-experimental types of research apply to experimental designs with the least internal validity.
One type of pre-experiment, the single group, pre-test-post-test design. measures the group two
times, before and after the intervention.
Instead of comparing the pretest with the posttest within one group, the posttest of the treated
groups is compared with that of an untreated group. Measuring the effect as the difference between
groups marks this as between-subjects design. Assuming both groups experienced the same time-
related influences, the comparison group feature should protect this design from the rival
explanations that threaten the within-subject design.
Two classes of experimental designs can provide better internal validity than-pre-experimental
designs: quasi-experimental and true experimental (Dooly, 1999).
In a quasi-experimental design, the researcher can collect more data, either by scheduling more
observations or finding more existing measures.
A true experimental design controls for both time-related and group-related threats. Two features
mark true experiments- two or more differently treated groups and random assignment to these
groups. These features require that the researchers have control over the experimental treatment and
the power to place subjects in groups.
True experimental design employs both treated and control groups to deal with time-related rival
explanations.
A control group reflects changes other than those due to the treatment that occur during the time
of the study. Such changes include effects of outside events, maturation by the subjects, changes in
measures and impact of any pre-tests.
 True experimental design offers the highest internal validity of all the designs. Quasi-experimental
design differs from true experimental design by the absence of random assignment of subjects to
different conditions. What quasi-experiments have in common with true experiments is that some
subjects receive an intervention and provide data likely to reflect its impact.
Types of Quasi-Experimental Design
1. Non-equivalent control group design-refers to the chance failure of random assignment to
equalize the conditions by converting a true experiment into this kind of design, for purposes of
analysis.
2. Interrupted Time Series Design- employs multiple measures before and after the experimental
intervention. It differs from the single-group pre-experiment that has only one pretest and one
posttest. Users of this design assume that the time threats such as history or maturation appear as
regular changes in the measures prior to the intervention.

Non-experimental Research Design

In this kind of design, the researcher observes the phenomena as they occur naturally and no
external variables are introduced. In this research design, the variables are not deliberately
manipulated nor is the setting controlled. Researchers collect data without making changes or
introducing treatments.
The Descriptive research design's main purpose is to observe, describe and document aspects of
a situation as it naturally occurs and sometimes to serve as a starting point for hypothesis generation
or theory development(www.drjayeshpatidar. blogspot.com).

Types of Descriptive Research Designs

1. Survey - a research design used when the researcher intends to provide a quantitative or
numeric description of trends, attitudes or opinions of a population by studying a sample of that
population (Creswell, 2003).For example, universities regularly float surveys to determine
customer satisfaction, that is, the students' attitudes toward or opinions regarding student
services like the canteen, clinic. security, the guidance and counseling services, and the like.

2. Correlational-Correlational Research has three types:

 Bivariate correlational studies- obtain scores from two variables for each subject, then use
them to calculate a correlation coefficient. The term bivariate implies that the two variables are
correlated (variables are selected because they are believed to be related).
Examples: Children of wealthier (variable #1), better educated (variable #2) parents earn
higher salaries as adults.

 Prediction studies-use correlation co-efficient to show how one variable (the predictor variable)
predicts another (the criterion variable).
Examples: Which high school applicants should be admitted to college?

 Multiple Regression Prediction Studies- suppose the high school GPA is not the sole predictor
of college GPA, what might be other good predictors? All of these variables can contribute to
the over-all prediction in an equation that adds together the predictive power of each identified
variable.

3. Ex-Post Facto Research Design-These are non-experimental designs that are used to
investigate causal relationships. They examine whether one or more pre-existing conditions
could possibly have caused subsequent differences in groups
of subjects. Researchers attempt to discover whether differences between groups
have results in an observed difference in the independent variables.
(www.genesep edu/esham/educ.604/research pdf).
Examples:What is the effect of home schooling on the social skills of adolescents?

4.Comparative design -involves comparing and contrasting two or more samples of study subjects
on one or more variables, often at a single point of time. Specifically, this design is used to
compare two distinct groups on the basis of selected attributes such as knowledge level.
perceptions, and attitudes, physical or psychological symptoms. For example, a comparative
study on the health problems among rural and urban older people from district Mehsana,
Gujarat. (www.dryayeshpatidat.blogspot.com).
 5. Evaluative Research -seeks to assess or judge in some way providing information about
something other than might be gleaned in mere observation or investigation of relationships.
For example, where a test of children in school is used to assess the effectiveness of teaching
or the deployment of a curriculum.
(changingminds.org/explanations/research/design/evaluativeresearch.htm).

Evaluation research is conducted to elicit useful feedback from a variety of respondents from
various fields to aid in decision making or policy formulation.

There are various types of evaluation depending on the purpose of the study. Formative and
summative evaluation types are most commonly used in research.

Formative evaluation is used to determine the quality of implementation of a project, the

efficiency and effectiveness of a program, assessment of organizational processes like procedures,
policies, guidelines, human resource development and the like.

6.Methodological-in this approach, the implementation of a variety of methodologies forms a

critical part of achieving the goal of developing a scale-matched approach. where data from
different disciplines can be integrated.
 Lesson 2: Importance of Quantitative Research Across Fields

People do research to find solutions, even tentative ones, to problems, in order rather than
discovery, has been widely used in most disciplines.
In the natural and social sciences, quantitative research is the systematic, empirical models,
theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to
quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation
and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.
Health Sciences (Medical Technology, Dentistry, Nursing, Medicine, etc.) use quantitative
research designs like the descriptive, pre-experimental, quasi-experimental. true experiment, case
study, among others.

Quantitative Research Across Disciplines

Quantitative Research and Anthropology

Bernard (1994) says that there are five steps to follow in conducting true experiments with
people:
1.You need at least two groups, called the treatment group (or the intervention group or the
stimulus group) and the control group. One group gets the intervention (a new drug, for example),
and the other group (the control group) doesn't.

2. Individuals must be randomly assigned, either to the intervention group or to the control
group to ensure that the groups are equivalent. Some individuals in a population may be more
religious, or more wealthy, or less sickly, or more prejudiced than others, but random assignment
ensures that those traits are randomly distributed through the groups in an experiment. The degree to
which randomization ensures equivalence, however, depends on the size of the groups created. With
random assignment, two groups of 50 are more equivalent than four groups of 25.

3.The groups are measured on one or more dependent variables (income, infant mortality,
attitude toward abortion, knowledge of curing techniques, or other things you hope to change by the
intervention); this is called the pretest.

4.The intervention (the independent variable) is introduced.

5.The dependent variables are measured again. This is the posttest.

True Experiments in the Lab

Bernard further says that true experiments with people are common in laboratory experiments
and in the testing of new medicines. Laboratory experiments often produce results that beg to be
tested in the natural world by anthropologists. Aaron and Mills (1959, as cited in Bernard, 1994)
demonstrated in a lab experiment that people who go through severe initiation to a group tend to be
more positive toward the group than are people who go through a mild initiation. They reasoned that
people who go through tough initiation rites put a lot of personal investment into getting into the
group. Later, if people see evidence that the group is not what they thought it would be, they are
reluctant to admit the fact because of the investment.

True Experiments in the Field

When they are done outside the lab, experiments are called field experiments. Janet Schofield
and her colleagues did a 3-year ethnographic study of a middle school. During the first year, they
noticed that African-American and white children seemed to react differently to "mildly aggressive
acts"-things like bumping in the hallway, poking one another in the classroom, asking for food, or
using another student's pencil without permission. There appeared to be no event of racial conflict in
the school, but during interviews white students were more likely to report being intimidated by their
African-American peers than vice versa (Sagar & Schofield,1980, as cited in Bernard, 1994).

Quasi-Experiments

Quasi-experiments are most often used in evaluating social programs. Suppose a researcher
has invented a technique for improving reading comprehension among third graders. She/he selects
two third-grade classes in a school district. One of them gets the intervention and the other doesn't.
Students are measured before and after the intervention to see whether their reading scores improve.
This design contains many of the elements of a true experiment, but the participants are not assigned
randomly to the treatment and control groups. (Bernard, 1994).

The One-Shot Case Study, or One-Group Posttest Only Design

In the one-shot case study design, a single group of individuals is measured on some
dependent variable after an intervention has taken place. The researcher tries to evaluate the
experiment by interviewing people (O) and trying to assess the impact of the intervention (X). The
problem, of course, is that you can't be sure that what you observe is the result of some particular
intervention. In the 1950s, physicians began general use of the Pap Test, a simple procedure for
determining the presence of cervical cancer. Following the introduction of the Pap Test,
measurements were made for several years to see if there was any effect. Sure enough, cervical
cancer rates dropped and dropped. Later, it was noticed that cervical cancer rates had been dropping
steadily since the 1930s. Of course, early detection of any cancer is important in fighting the disease.
But the data from the 1930s and 1940s show that, initially at least, the Pap Bernard,1994).

The Two-Group Posttest Only Design

For this research design, Bernard (1994) cites this example: Consider two villages in the same
cultural region; one village has experienced a major intervention (tourism, a factory, an irrigation
system)while the other villages have not. You measure a series of variables (income, attitudes toward
the national government, the amount of time women spend in child-rearing activities) in both villages.
These are O1 and O2.

If the differences between O1 and 02 are small, you can't tell if the intervention, X, caused
those differences. This design is quite convincing, though, when the differences between O1 and O2
are large and where you have lots of participant observation data to back up the claim that the
intervention is responsible for those differences.

The One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design

In the one-group pretest-posttest design, some variables are measured (observed), then the
intervention takes place, and then the variables are measured again. This takes care of some of the
problems associated with the one-shot case study, but doesn't eliminate the threats of history, testing,
maturation, selection, and mortality. Most importantly, if there is a significant difference in the pretest
and posttest measurements, we can't tell if the intervention made that difference happen. (Bernard,
1994).

Quantitative Research and Communication

Researchers are often interested in how an understanding of a particular communication
phenomenon might be generalized to a larger population. For example, researchers can advance
questions like "What effect do punitive behavioral control statements have on a classroom? What
communicative behaviors are associated with different stages in a romantic relationship? What
communicative behaviors are used to respond lo co-workers displaying emotional stress? (Allen.
Titsworth,Hunt,2009).

Quantitative Research and Sports Medicine

A quantitative research done by the University of Eastern Finland investigated the relationship
between the mushrooming of fast food chains and obesity of children, as well as the intervention
needed to prevent the children's obesity from reaching serious proportions.
The research studied 410 children, with ages ranging from six to eight years old from Kuopio,
Eastern Finland.
The researchers focused on the children's physical activity and physical inactivity and the
concomitant impact on the children's amount of adipose tissue (fat mass) and endurance fitness. The
study showed that children who did strenuous exercise for 10 minutes daily had 26-30% less adipose
tissue than their peers who were physically inactive. Il had also been found out that even light
physical activity for the equivalent time of passive sitting reduced the children's adipose tissue by
13%. The study concluded that physical activity affects effectively the children's weight control.
 Quantitative Research and Medical Education

Quantitative research in medical education tends to be predominantly observational research

based on surveys or correlational studies.
(http.//oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780199652679.001.0001/
med_9780199652679_chapter53.)
Experimental research designs may enhance the quality of medical education. Said designs
test interventions like curriculum, teaching-learning process, or assessment with an experimental
group. Either a comparison or controlled group of learners may allow researchers to overcome
validity concerns and infer potential cause-effect generalizations.
When designing their own or evaluating other researchers' studies, researchers must always
keep in mind internal and external validity concerns.
The selection of a research design for any study should be within the parameters of the
research questions as stated in the problem statement or hypothesis. In quantitative research, the
findings will reflect the reliability and validity (psychometric characteristics of the measured outcomes
or dependent variables such as changes in knowledge, skill or attitudes used to assess the
effectiveness of medical education intervention or the independent variable of interest.

Quantitative Research and the Behavioral Sciences

Contemporary quantitative scholars are interested in two types of questions:

1.Questions of relationships and
2.Questions of differences
Relationship questions tend to explore how one behavior exhibited by people is related to
other types of behavior. Examples are verbally aggressive behaviors related to physical aggression-
that is, when a person has high level of verbally aggressive behavior, does he or she tend to be
physically aggressive? Are certain supervisor communication skills related to the emotional
experiences of employees?
Questions of difference explore how patterns of behavior or perceptions might differ from one
group or type of person to another: Do people with disabilities experience emotional labor differently
from those without disabilities? Do women perceive talkativeness (or lack of it) differently from men?
Do communication styles differ from one culture to the next? (Allen, Titsworth, Hunt, 2009).
When quantitative researchers explore questions of differences or questions of relationships,
they do so in an attempt to uncover certain patterns of behavior. If the researcher discovers that a
certain relationship exists in a sample that she or he has drawn from the population, she/he is then in
a position to draw generalizations about patterns expected of human behavior.

Quantitative Research In Education and Psychology

Mertens (2005) says that the dominant paradigms that guided early educational and
psychological research were positivism and its successor, post positivism.Positivism is based on the
rationalistic, empiricist philosophy that originated with Aristotle, Francis Bacon, John Locke, August
Comte, and Immanuel Kant. The underlying assumptions of positivism include the belief that the
social world can be studied in the same way as the natural world, that there is a method for studying
the social world that is value-free, and that explanations of a causal nature can be provided.
The following table was done by Doren, Bullis, and Benz, 1996, as cited in Mertens, 2005, to
illustrate this view of positivism:

Research Problem: Very little is known about the victimization experiences of adolescents
with disabilities, yet previous research has suggested that people with mental retardation are
vulnerable to economic, psychological, and physical abuse.
Research Question: What are the predictors of victimization for a sample of adolescents with
disabilities in transition from high school to adult life?
Method: Students with disabilities and their parents in two western states were interviewed
during the students' last year in school and once again, when students were 1 year out of school.
Participants: Participants were students with disabilities who were identified by their school as
in their last year of high school or who had dropped out of high school sometime during what would
have been their last year (sample size=422).
Instruments and Procedures: A fixed-response interview was conducted by telephone with
students and their parents by trained interviewers. Predictor variables were selected based on
previous research; these included gender, minority status, serious emotional disturbance (SED),
specific learning disability (SLD). dropout status, family socioeconomic status. parent rating of
academic skills, and a rating of personal-social skills. The outcome variable of victimization was
defined as experiencing more than one of the following: being teased or bothered, having something
stolen from them, or being hit hard or beaten up.
Results: The following characteristics were associated with a greater, likelihood of being
victimized during the first year out of school: prior victimization while still in school in the previous
year, being female, having low post school personal-social achievement, and having both SED and
an arrest record within 1year of leaving school.
Discussion: The greatest risk for victimization was for the group who had serious emotional
disturbance and low personal-social achievement. The authors recommend increasing social skill
training directed to this specific group in terms of appropriate ways to behave in community settings
where victimization could occur.

Quantitative Research and the Social Sciences

Quantitative approaches are typically associated with positivist perspectives in social research.
Hammersley (1993,as cited in Henn,Weinstein,Foard,2006) provides a useful definition of this
approach:
The term 'quantitative method' refers to the adoption of the natural science experiments as the
model for scientific research, its key features being quantitative measurement of the phenomena
studied and systematic control of the theoretical variables influencing those problems.

Thus, the logic of such research is to:

 collect data using standardized approaches on a range of variables;
 search for patterns of causal relationships between these variables; and
 test given theory by confirming or denying precise hypotheses.

The methods employed in this type of quantitative social research are most typically the
sample survey and the experiment, a method that is particularly popular in psychological research.

The sample survey is the most commonly used technique for gathering information, whether
by quantitative or qualitative means. Surveys are based on using statistical sampling methods. By
taking a representative sample from a given population and applying a standardized research
instrument in the form of a structured questionnaire, surveys enable descriptive and explanatory
generalizations to be made about the population in question.

Experimental Research

Experiments are most commonly used in psychological research and in the broad field of
business studies in the form of action research. Experimental research is based on the researcher
manipulating certain conditions in order to identify the relationship between particular variables, in the
hope that it will explain cause and effect relationships. In seeking to measure the impact that one
factor has on another by controlling all other factors that might have an effect, experimental research
builds on the principles of a positivist approach to science, more than any other research technique.

Experiments can be carried out in a laboratory or a field setting. Laboratory experimentation is

the most closely regulated method of experiment, involving the introduction of certain conditions into
a controlled environment that stimulates key characteristics of a natural environment. An example
might be examining the extent to which the responses of a group of voters to questions about political
attitudes after exposures to a series of party election broadcast might be different to another (yet
identical) group's responses who are not confronted with such images. Such experiments allow for
very considerable time on behalf of the researcher who is able to effect change and observe the
research participants' subsequent behaviour.

Social research is all around us: Educators, government officials, business, managers, human
service providers and health care professionals regularly use social research methods and findings.
People use social research to raise children, reduce crime, improve public health, sell products or just
understand one's life. (Neuman, 2007).