Quantitative Methods

Research approaches
These are plans and the procedures for research that span the steps from broad assumptions to
detailed methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The overall decision involves
which approach should be used to study a topic. Informing this decision should be the
philosophical assumptions the researcher brings to the study; procedures of inquiry (research
designs); and specific research methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
The selection of a research approach is also based on the nature of the research problem or
issue being addressed, the researchers’ personal experiences, and the audiences for the study.

Research Approach

Research Design

Research Methods

The Three Approaches to Research

1. Qualitative Research
2. Quantitative Research
3. Mixed Methods Approach
According to Newman & Benz (1998), qualitative and quantitative approaches should not be
viewed as rigid, distinct categories, polar opposites, or dichotomies. Instead, they represent
different ends on a continuum.
Note: A study tends to be more qualitative than quantitative or vice versa.
Mixed methods research resides in the middle of this continuum because it incorporates elements
of both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Imagine a pendulum, the right end may represent a study being
qualitative and the left end may represent a study being quantitative.
The middle of the pendulum represents a study using mixed methods.
As Newman & Benz (1998) suggests, this is how we must view these
three approaches.
A more complete way to view the gradations of differences between them is in the basic
philosophical assumptions researchers bring to the study, the types of research strategies used
in the research (e.g., quantitative experiments or qualitative case studies), and the specific
methods employed in conducting these strategies (e.g., collecting data quantitatively on
instruments versus collecting qualitative data through observing a setting).

Qualitative Research is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals
or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The process of research involves emerging
questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant’s setting, data analysis
inductively building from particulars to general themes, and the researcher making
interpretations of the meaning of the data. The final written report has a flexible structure. Those
who engage in this form of inquiry support a way of looking at research that honors an inductive
style, a focus on individual meaning, and the importance of rendering the complexity of a
situation.
Quantitative Research is an approach for testing objective theories by examining the
relationshiip among variables. These variables, in turn, can be measured, typically on
instruments, so that numbered data can be analyzed using statistical procedures. The final written
report has a set structure consisting of introduction, literature and theory, methods, results and
discussion. Like qualitative researchers, those who engage in this form of inquiry have
assumptions about testing theories deductively, building in protections against bias, controlling
for alternative explanations, and being able to generalize and replicate the findings.
Mixed Methods Research is an approach to inquiry involving collecting both quantitative and
qualitative data, integrating the two forms of data and using distinct designs that may involve
philosophical assumptions and theoretical frameworks. The core assumption of this form of
inquiry is that the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches provides a more
complete understanding of a research problem than either approach alone.

Research Designs
Research designs are types of inquiry within qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches that provide specific direction for procedures in a research study. Others have called
them strategies of inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011).
Quantitative Designs
During the late 19th and throughout the 20th century, quantitative research designs were those that
involed the postpositivist worldview and that originated mainly in psychology. These include
true experiments and the less rigorous quasi-experiments (see original on Campbell & Stanley,
1963). An additional experimental design is applied behavioral analysis or single-subject
experiments in which an experimental treatment is administered over time to a single individual
or a small number of individuals (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007; Neuman & McCormick,
1995). We also have non-experimental design, one such as causal-comparative research in which
the investigator compares two or more groups in terms of a cause (or independent variable) that
has already happened.Another non-experimental design is correlational design in which
investigators use the correlational statistic to describe and measure the degree or association (or
relationship) between two or mor variables or sets of scores (Creswell, 2012). Additionally, there
is also factorial design and repeated measure designs which involves complex experiments with
many variables and treatments.

Survey research provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions

of a population by studying a sample of that population. It includes cross-sectional and
longitudinal studies using questionnaires or structured interviews for data collection—with the
intent of generalizing from a sample to a population (Fowler, 2008).
Experimental research seeks to determine if a specific treatment influences an outcome. The
researcher assesses this by providing a specific treatment to one group and withholding it from
another and then determining how both groups scored on an outcome. Experiments include true
experiments, with the random assignment of subjects to treatment conditions, and quasi-
experiments that use nonrandomized assignments (Keppel, 1991). Included within quasi-
experiments are single-subject designs.

Mixed Method Designs

Mixed methods involves combining or integration of qualitative and quantitative research and
data in a research study. Qualitative data tends to be open-ended without predetermined
responses while quantitative data usually includes closed-ended responses such as found on
questionnaires or psychological instruments. The field of mixed methods research, as we know it
today, began in the middle to late 1980s. Its origins, however, go back further. In 1959, Campbell
and Fisk used multiple methods to study psychological traits—although their methods were only
quantitative measures. Their work prompted others to begin collecting multiple forms of data,
such as observations and interviews (qualitative data) with traditional surveys (Sieber, 1973).
Early thoughts about the value of multiple methods—called mixed methods—resided in the idea
that all methods had bias and weaknesses, and the collection of both quantitative and qualitative
data neutralized the weaknesses of each form of data. Triangulating data sources—a means for
seeking convergence across qualitative and quantitative methods—was born (Jick, 1979). By the
early 1990s, mixed methods turned toward the systematic integration of quantitative and
qualitative data, and the idea of ways to combine the data through different types of research
designs emerged. These types of designs were extensively discussed in a major handbook
addressing the field in 2003 and reissued in 2010 (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010). Procedures for
expanding mixed methods developed such as follows:
a. Ways to integrate the quantitative and qualitative data, such as one database, could be
used to check the accuracy (validity) of the other database.
b. One database could help explain the other database, and one database could explore
different types of questions than the other database.
c. One database could lead to better instruments when instruments are not well suited for a
sample or population.
d. One database could build on other databases, and one database could alternate with
another database back and forth during a longitudinal study.