FND 601- QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

RICKY T. SALABE CYNTHIA D. DILAG, EdD, PhD

Student, PhD ILE- English Course Facilitator

Activity 1
I. Interest in Qualitative Research
Rating 1- Love 2- Hate

Answer:
1
II. How was your experience with Quantitative Research?
My experience with Quantitative Research when I was in College was a little difficult
because that was my first time to undergo the subject. However, when I had my graduate
school I found it very interesting because of its value. From then I loved research.

III. Weaknesses, Strength and Value of Quantitative Research (use matrix)

Quantitative Research has truly made known its relevance and importance for us to
quantify certain problems. It is used to quantify the problems by generating numerical data or
data that can be transformed into usable statistics wherein it is used to quantify attitudes,
opinions, behaviors, and other variables – and to generalize results from a larger sample size.
Table below shows the weaknesses, strengths and value of quantitative research.

Weaknesses Strengths Value

 Involves limited number of
Quants supply and also
involves complex disciplines
which are hard to master.
 Requires the model
performance to be
monitored on constant basis
in order to ensure its
compliance with the original
hypotheses.
 Reveals what and to what
extent but often fails to
answer more on why and
how.
 The impression of
homogeneity in a sample
may turn out to be fake in
this method.
 Collect reliable and
accurate data: As data is
collected, analyzed, and
presented in numbers, the
results obtained will be
extremely reliable.
Numbers do not lie. They
offer an honest picture of
the conducted research
without discrepancies and
is also extremely accurate.
In situations where a
researcher predicts
conflict, quantitative
research is conducted.
 Quick data collection: A
quantitative research is
carried out with a group of
respondents who represent
a population. A survey or
any other quantitative
 Provide answers to questions
about the frequency of a
phenomenon, or the
magnitude to which the
phenomenon affects the
sample.
 Generate knowledge and
create understanding about
the social world. 
  A way to learn about a
particular group of people,
known as a sample
population. 
 More reliable and objective
 Can use statistics to
generalize a finding
 Often reduces and
restructures a complex
problem to a limited number
of variables
 Looks at relationships
 research method applied to between variables and can
these respondents and the establish cause and effect in
involvement of statistics, highly controlled
conducting, and analyzing circumstances.
results is quite  Less detailed than qualitative
straightforward and less data and may miss a desired
time-consuming. response from the participant
 Wider scope of data Tests theories or hypotheses
analysis: Due to the  Assumes sample is
statistics, this research representative of the
method provides a wide population
scope of data collection.  Subjectivity of researcher in
 Eliminate bias: This methodology is recognize less
research method offers no
scope for personal
comments or biasing of
results. The results
achieved are numerical and
are thus, fair in most cases.
 Quantitative data
provides a macro view with
all the required details and
comparatively larger
samples.
 Provides an allowance
on the formulation of
statistically sound
 Larger sample sizes
enable the conclusion to be
generalized.
 Evaluation of the
multiple data sets can be
done at once and that too at
a faster pace and
accurately.
 This method is called to
be appropriate when there
is a need of systematic and
standardizezed
comparisons.
 The manual
implementations of ideas
can be automated
completely which can save
time.

IV. Steps in Quantitative Research (discuss)

 Quantitative research is defined as a systematic investigation of phenomena by gathering
quantifiable data and performing statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques.
Quantitative research collects information from existing and potential customers using sampling
methods and sending out online surveys, online polls, questionnaires, etc., the results of which can be
depicted in the form of numerical. After careful understanding of these numbers to predict the future
of a product or service and make changes accordingly.

10. Findings /
Theory
Conclusions
Hypothesis
11. Publishing
Steps in Research Design
Results Quantitative
Research

4. Operationalizing
Concepts
5. Selecting a Research
Site
6. Selecting Respondents
7. Data Collection
8. Data Processing
9. Data Analysis

1. Theory 
The fact that quantitative research starts off with theory signifies the broadly deductive
approach to the relationship between theory and research in this tradition. The sociological
theory most closely associated with this approach is Functionalism, which is a development of
the positivist origins of sociology.

2. Hypothesis 
It is common outlines of the main steps of quantitative research to suggest that
a hypothesis is deduced from the theory and is tested.
However, a great deal of quantitative research does not entail the specification of a
hypothesis, and instead theory acts loosely as a set of concerns in relation to which social
researcher collects data. The specification of hypotheses to be tested is particularly likely
to be found in experimental research but is often found as well in survey research, which is
usually based on cross-sectional design.

3. Research design 
The next step entails the selection of a research design which has implications for a
variety of issues, such as the external validity of findings and researchers’ ability to impute
causality to their findings.

4. Operationalizing concepts
Operationalizing concepts is a process where the researcher devises measure of the
concepts which she wishes to investigate. This typically involves breaking down abstract
sociological concepts into more specific measures which can be easily understood by
respondents. For example, ‘social class’ can be operationalized into ‘occupation’ and ‘strength of
religious believe’ can be measured by using a range of questions about ‘ideas about God’ and
‘attendance at religious services’.

5. selection of a research site or sites

With laboratory experiments, the site will already be established, in field experiments,
this will involve the selection of a field-site or sites, such as a school or factory, while with  survey
research, site-selection may be more varied. Practical and ethical factors will be a limiting factor
in choice of research sites.

6. Selection of respondents
Step six involves ‘choosing a sample of participants’ to take part in the study – which
can involve any number of sampling techniques, depending on the hypothesis, and practical and
ethical factors. If the hypothesis requires comparison between two different groups (men and
women for example), then the sample should reflect this.

7. Data collection
Step seven,  is what most people probably think of as ‘doing research’.  In experimental
research this is likely to involve pre-testing respondents, manipulating the independent variable
for the experimental group and then post-testing respondents. In cross-sectional research using
surveys, this will involve interviewing the sample members by structured-interview or using a
pre-coded questionnaire. For observational research this will involve watching the setting and
behaviour of people and then assigning categories to each element of behaviour.

8. Processing data
 This means transforming information which has been collected into ‘data’. With some
information this is a straightforward process – for example, variables such as ‘age’, or ‘income’
are already numeric.
Other information might need to be ‘coded’ – or transformed into numbers so that it can
be analyzed. Codes act as tags that are placed on data about people which allow the information
to be processed by a computer.

9. Data analysis
In step nine, analyzing data, the researcher uses a number of statistical techniques to
look for significant correlations between variables, to see if one variable has a significant effect
on another variable.
The simplest type of technique is to organize the relationship between variables into
graphs, pie charts and bar charts, which give an immediate ‘intuitive’ visual impression of
whether there is a significant relationship, and such tools are also vital for presenting the results
of one’s quantitative data analysis to others.
In order for quantitative research to be taken seriously, analysis needs to use a number of
accepted statistical techniques, such as the Chi-squared test, to test whether there is a
relationship between variables. This is precisely the bit that many sociology students will hate,
but has become much more common place in the age of big data!

10. Findings and conclusions 

On the basis of the analysis of the data, the researcher must interpret the results of the
analysis. It is at this stage that the findings will emerge: if there is a hypothesis, is it
supported? What are the implications of the findings for the theoretical ideas that formed the
background of the research?

11. Writing up Findings 

Finally, in stage 11, the research must be written up. The research will be writing for
either an academic audience, or a client, but either way, a write-up must convince the audience
that the research process has been robust, that data is as valid, reliable and representative as it
needs to be for the research purposes, and that the findings are important in the context of
already existing research.
Once the findings have been published, they become part of the stock of knowledge (or
‘theory’ in the loose sense of the word) in their domain. Thus, there is a feedback loop from step
eleven back up to step one.
The presence of an element of both deductivism (step two) and inductivism is indicative
of the positivist foundations of quantitative research.

V. Types of Variables
 VARIABLE is a measurable characteristic that varies. It may change from group to group,
person to person, or even within one person over time. There are six common variable types:

1. DEPENDENT VARIABLES
Show the effect of manipulating or introducing the independent variables. For example, if
the independent variable is the use or non-use of a new language teaching procedure,
then the dependent variable might be students' scores on a test of the content taught
using that procedure. In other words, the variation in the dependent variable depends on
the variation in the independent variable.

2. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
Those that the researcher has control over. This "control" may involve manipulating
existing variables (e.g., modifying existing methods of instruction) or introducing new
variables (e.g., adopting a totally new method for some sections of a class) in the research
setting. Whatever the case may be, the researcher expects that the independent
variable(s) will have some effect on (or relationship with) the dependent variables.

3. INTERVENING VARIABLES
Refer to abstract processes that are not directly observable but that link the independent
and dependent variables. In language learning and teaching, they are usually inside the
subjects' heads, including various language learning processes which the researcher
cannot observe. For example, if the use of a particular teaching technique is the
independent variable and mastery of the objectives is the dependent variable, then the
language learning processes used by the subjects are the intervening variables.

4. MODERATOR VARIABLES
Affect the relationship between the independent and dependent variables by modifying
the effect of the intervening variable(s). Unlike extraneous variables, moderator variables
are measured and taken into consideration. Typical moderator variables in TESL and
language acquisition research (when they are not the major focus of the study) include
the sex, age, culture, or language proficiency of the subjects.

5. CONTROL VARIABLES
Language learning and teaching are very complex processes. It is not possible to consider
every variable in a single study. Therefore, the variables that are not measured in a
particular study must be held constant, neutralized/balanced, or eliminated, so they will
not have a biasing effect on the other variables. Variables that have been controlled in this
way are called control variables.

6. EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES
Are those factors in the research environment which may have an effect on the dependent
variable(s) but which are not controlled. Extraneous variables are dangerous. They may
damage a study's validity, making it impossible to know whether the effects were caused
by the independent and moderator variables or some extraneous factor.