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Introduction to Quantitative Research

Charles Laugharne

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Quantitative/Qualitative?

• Quantitative• Emphasis on measuring

and counting

• Makes general statements about people as groups

• Likes to prove causal relationships

• Tends to reduce things to smaller parts

• Qualitative• Usually no counting

• Emphasis on feeling and experiences

• Tends to see the world as changing

• Emphasis on the individual

• Tends to see things holistically

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Methods

• Quantitative• Experiments• Random control trials• Surveys

• Qualitative• Ethnography• Phenomenology

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How to measure

• Instruments

e.g. (Temperature using a thermometer, ruler)

• Scales

(used to measure things we cannot see)

• Counting

(Number of people, ages and length of time)

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The Building Blocks

• Theory – a set of ideas about a situation that guides a research study

• Hypothesis – the researcher’s prediction of what they might find

• Variables - independent variable – the “cause”

- dependent variable – the “effect”

• Instruments – describes the tool used to collect data in a study

e.g. questionnaire

• Measurement – the method used to measure the phenomenon being studied

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Sampling

• Population - the units (people, events, objects or institutions) from which data are collected.

- A clearly defined group who share common characteristics, as defined by the researcher.

• Sample - a proportion or subset of the sample

- a section of a defined population used in a study to provide data

• Census

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Evaluating quantitative research

• ValidityDoes it study what is says it studies? The extent to which a tool of data collection has produced what it intended to produce.

• ReliabilityThe accuracy of the tool of data collection. Are the results repeated in further studies?

• GeneralizabilityIn quantitative research, the ability to apply the results of a study to other like situations.