Practical Research 2
LESSON 5: Nature and Inquiry and Research:
Importance of Quantitative Research
Importance of Quantitative Research
1. More reliable and objective.
2. Can use statistics to generalize a finding.
3. Often reduces and restructures a complex
problem to a limited number of variables.
4. Looks at relationships between variables and can
establish cause and effect in highly controlled
circumstances.
5. Tests theories or hypotheses
6. Assumes sample is representative of the
population
7. Subjectivity of researcher in methodology is
recognized less.
8. Less detailed than qualitative data and may miss
a desired response from the participant.
Importance of Quantitative Research across Fields
 People do research to find solutions, even
tentative ones, to problems, in order to
improve or enhance ways of doing things, to
disprove or provide a new hypothesis, or simply
to find answers to questions or solutions to
problems in daily life.
 Research findings can affect people’s lives,
ways of doing things, laws, rules and
regulations, as well as policies, among others.
 Widely, quantitative research is often used
because of its emphasis on proof rather than
discovery.
 In the natural and social sciences, quantitative
research is the systematic, empirical
investigation of observable phenomena via
statistical, mathematical or computational
techniques.
 The objective of quantitative research is to
develop and employ mathematical 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 descriptive, pre-
experimental, quasi-experimental, true-
experiment, case study, among others.
1. Quantitative Research and Accounting,
Business and Management (ABM)
 Research helps to design a new product or
service, figuring out what is needed and
ensure the development of product is
highly targeted towards demand.
 Results of conducting research helps them
to guarantee if sufficient distribution of
their products and decide where they need
to increase their product distribution.
 Research helps to know whether now is the
proper time to open another branch or
whether it needs to apply for a new loan.
 It may also help a small business decide if a
procedure or strategy should be change to
meet the requirements of the customer
base.
 Research is important for any organization
to remain in the market.
 The primary function of research in ABM is
to determine its customers and their
preferences, establish the enterprise in the
most feasible location, deliver quality
goods and services, analyze what the
competitors are doing and find ways on
how to continuously satisfy the growing
and varied needs of the clients.
 Example of ABM RESEARCH : FEASIBILITY
STUDY
2. Quantitative Research and Anthropology
 A research method of combining qualitative
and quantitative research data.
 Focused on exploring connections
simultaneously, about cultural differences,
alternatives and identity.
 In the contemporary academic (socio-
cultural and political climate) these
concepts have immense symbolic meaning.
 Quantitative research is use in
Anthropology in many aspects.
  EXAMPLE : ETHNOGRAPHY RESEARCH AND
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
3. Quantitative Research and Communication
 Researchers are often interested in how an
understanding of a particular
communication phenomenon might
generalize 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 romantic relationships?
-What communicative behaviors are used to
respond to co-workers displaying emotional stress?
(Allen, Titsworth, Hunt, 2009)
- (Research involves in PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION,
SOCIAL WORK, and other behavioral social
sciences.)
4. Quantitative Research and Sports
Medicine
 Quantitative research is used to analyze
how sports may be used as an alternative
way of medicating an illness.
Example: A Research done by University of Eastern
Finland which investigated the relationship
between mushrooming of fast-food chains and
obesity, as well as the intervention needed to
prevent children’s obesity from reaching serious
proportions. The research 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 the endurance
fitness. This study is used to analyze certain the
effect of physical activity in weight control.
5. Quantitative Research and Medical
Education
 Quantitative research in medical education
tends to be predominantly observational
research based on surveys or correlational
studies.
 The designs test interventions like
curriculum, teaching-learning process, or
assessment with an experimental group.
 Either a comparison or controlled group
learners may allow researchers to
overcome validity concerns and infer
potential cause-effect generalizations.
 Researchers are using to cope with the
emerging trends in recent times.
6. Quantitative Research and Behavioral
Sciences
 Relationship Questions explore how one
behavior exhibited by people is related to
other types of behavior.
Example: The Relationship between Verbally
aggressive behaviors and Physical Aggression
-When a person has a 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?
- (Research involves in PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION,
SOCIAL WORK, and other behavioral social
sciences.)
7. Quantitative Research in Education
 Quasi Experiments are most often used in
evaluating social problems.
Example: Supposedly 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 true experiment, but the participants are
not assigned randomly to the treatment
and control groups.
8. Quantitative Research and Psychology
 Mertens (2005) says that the paradigms
guided in early psychological research were
Positivism and its successor, Post
Positivism.
  Positivism is based on rationalistic and  New materials and procedures may be
empiricist philosophy that originated by developed so as to further strengthen the
Aristotle, Francis Bacon, John Locke, August structural materials than can withstand
Comte, and Immanuel Kant. various calamities and disasters.
 The assumption of positivism includes 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.
 Post Positivism believes that the ideas, and
even the particular identity, of a researcher
are influenced on what they observe and
therefore impacts upon what they
conclude.
 They pursue objective answers by
attempting to recognize and work with such
biases, with the theories and knowledge
that theorists develop.
Example: One of the bases of their Research is
theories.
9. Quantitative Research & Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
 Medical practitioners, conduct research to
obtain significant information about
diseases trends and risk factors, results of
various health interventions, patterns of
care and health care cost and use.
 The different approaches to research
provide complementary insights.
 Researchers help in determining the
effectiveness and even side effect of drugs
and therapies in different populations and
various institutions.
 It is also necessary in evaluating
experiences in clinical practice in order to
develop mechanisms for best practices and
to ensure high quality patient care.
 Researchers in these fields ultimately aim
for man’s longevity.
 As for engineers, architects, and other
builders, research helps in providing
designs which are creatively beautiful and
at the same time give more convenience
and efficiency as they utilize modern
technology to adapt to the ever-changing
society.
Lesson 6: Nature of Variables and Types of
Variables
VARIABLES
 Are “changing qualities or characteristics” of
persons or things like age, gender, intelligence,
ideas, achievements, confidence, and so on
that are involved in your research study.
 Came from the word “vary” which means to
undergo changes or to differ from, variables
have different or varying values in relation to
time and situation.
Types of Variables
1. CONTINUOS VARIABLE
 A variable that can take infinite number on
the value that can occur within the
population. Its values can be divided into
fractions.
Examples: age, height, and temperature
 Continuous variables can be further
categorized as:
A. INTERVAL VARIABLES
 It has values that lie along an evenly
dispersed range of numbers.
 It is a measurement where the
difference between two values does
have meaning.
Examples:
o Temperature
o A person’s net worth (how much
money you have when you
subtract your debt from your
assets)
B. RATIO VARIABLES
 It has values that lie along an evenly
dispersed range of numbers when there
is absolute zero.
 It possesses the properties of interval
variable and has a clear definition of
zero, indication that there is none of
that variable.
Examples: height, weight, distance
2. DISCRETE VARIABLE
 This is also known as categorical or
classificatory variable.
 This is any variable that has limited number
of distinct values and which cannot be
divided into fractions like sex, blood group,
and number of children in family.
 Discrete variable may also categorize into:
a. Nominal Variable
b. Ordinal Variable
A. NOMINAL VARIABLE
 It represents categories that cannot be
ordered in any particular way.
 It is a variable with no quantitative value.
 It has two or more categories but does not
imply ordering of cases.
Example: eye color, business type, religion,
biological sex, political affiliation, basketball fan
affiliation, etc.
 A sub-type of nominal scale with only two
categories just like sex is known as
dichotomous.
B. ORDINAL VARIABLE
 It represents categories that can be ordered
from greatest to smallest.
 This variable has two or more categories
which can be ranked.
Examples:
-education level
-income bracket set
Example: In educational attainment as a variable on
survey, you might use the following code:
Elementary School Graduates = 1
High School Graduates = 2
College Undergraduate = 3
College Graduate = 4
In this measure, higher number means greater
education. Even though we can rank these from
lowest to highest, the spacing between the values
may not be the same across the levels of the
variables. The distance between 3 and 4 is not the
same with the distance between 1 and 2.
 KINDS OF VARIABLES  They may be demographic or personal variables
that need to be “controlled” so that the true
a. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE influence of the independent variable on the
 Those that probably the cause, influence, or dependent variable can be determined.
affect outcomes.
 They are invariably called treatment,
manipulated, antecedent or predictor
variables.
 This is the one responsible for the conditions
that act on something else to bring about
changes.

b. DEPENDENT VARIABLE
 Those that depend on the independent
variables; they are the outcomes or results of
the influence of the independent variable.
e. CONFOUNDING VARIABLES
 It is also called outcome variable.
 Variables that are not actually measured or
observed in a study.
 They exist but their influence cannot be
directly detected in a study.

EXAMPLE: Touching the Wind

c. INTERVENING OR MEDIATING VARIABLES

Variables that “stand between” the independent
and dependent variables, and they show the
effects of the independent variable on the
dependent variable.
Example: Even if farm production is good, if the
attitude towards payment is negative, loan
repayment would be low, whereas, if the attitude
towards payment is positive or favorable, loan
repayment would be high.

d. CONTROL VARIABLES
 A special type of independent variables that are
measured in the study because they potentially
influence the dependent variable.
 Researchers use statistical procedures (e.g.
analysis of covariance) to control these
variables.