PRACTICAL

RESEARCH 2
LESSON 2.1
 WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF
QUANTITATIVE ACROSS VARIOUS FIELDS?
 WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF
QUANTITATIVE ACROSS VARIOUS
•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 recent
times, research studies are gaining an unprecedented
focus and attention.
 1. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH &
ACCOUNTING, BUSINESS and
•
MANAGEMENT (ABM)
Researches can help design a new product or service,
figuring out what is needed and ensure the
development of product is highly targeted towards
demand.
• Businessmen can also utilize research results to
guarantee sufficient distribution of their products and
decide where they need to increase their product
distribution.
• Conducting researches can also help a business
determine whether now is the proper time to open
another branch or whether it needs to apply for a new
loan.
 1. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH &
ACCOUNTING, BUSINESS and
•
MANAGEMENT (ABM)
The primary function of research in ABM is to correctly
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.
2. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH and
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Anthropology is a research method of combining
qualitative and quantitative research data. It is
concerned with exploring connections simultaneously,
amidst cultural differences, alternatives and identity.
• In the contemporary academic, socio-cultural and
political climate these concepts have immense
symbolic overtones. Quantitative research is use in
Anthropology in many aspects. Like, true experiments
may use in studying people provided that you follow
certain steps (Bernard, 2004). This is to look into the
Effects of an intervention in ethnic behaviour of a
group. In here, you need at least two groups, called
the treatment group and the control group.
2. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH and
ANTHROPOLOGY
• On group gets the intervention and the other group
don’t. Next, individuals may be randomly assigned,
either to the intervention group or to the control group
to ensure that the groups are equivalent. Then, the
groups are measured on one or more dependent
variables; this is called the pre-test. After which, the
intervention is introduced. Lastly, the dependent
variables are measured again. This is the post test.
True in experiments with people in laboratory are also
common.
 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).
 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.
• An example is the 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. The 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 in today’s quantitative trend 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 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? Questions of difference
explore how patterns of behavior or perceptions might
differ from one group or type of a person to another:
 6. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH and
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
• Do people with disabilities experience emotional labor
differently from those without disabilities? Do women
perceive talkativeness (or lack of it) differently form
men? Do communication styles differ from one culture to
the next? (Alle, 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 sample
that she or he has drawn form the population, she/he is
then in a position to draw generalizations about patterns
expected of human behavior.
7. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION
• Quasi Experiments are most often used in evaluating
social problems. 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 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 dominant paradigms that
guided early psychological research were positivism and
its successor, post positivism. Positivism is based on
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.
 9. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH & SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, and
• MATHEMATICS
Medical practitioners, for example, conduct researches
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.
 9. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH & SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, and
• MATHEMATICS
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. New materials and
procedures may be developed so as to further
strengthen the structural materials than can withstand
various calamities
VARIABLES
 WHAT IS A VARIABLE IN QUANTITATIVE
RESEARCH?
• Quantitative variables are those variables that are
measured in terms of numbers. Some examples of
quantitative variables are height, weight, and shoe size.
The root of the word variable is related to the word
“vary,” which should help us understand what variables
might be.
• Variables are elements, entities, or factors that can
change (vary); for example, the outdoor temperature,
the cost of gasoline per gallon, a person’s weight, and
the mood of persons in your extended family are all
variables. In other words, they can have different values
under different conditions or for different people.
TYPES OF VARIABLES
1. CONTINUOUS VARIABLES
• A variable that can take infinite number on the value that can
occur within the population. Its values can be divided into
fractions. Examples of this type of variable include age,
height, and temperature. Continuous variables can be further
categorized as:
A. INTERVAL VARIABLES - It have values that lie along an
evenly dispersed range of numbers. It is a measurement
where the difference between two values does have
meaning. Examples of interval data include temperature,
a person’s net worth (how much money you have when
you subtract our debt from your assets), etc. In
temperature, this may llustrate as the difference
between a of 60 degrees and 50 degrees is the same as
difference between 30 degrees and 20 degrees. The
interval between values makes sense and can be
interpreted.
1. CONTINUOUS VARIABLES
B. RATIO VARIABLES - It have 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. Most scores
stemming from response to survey items ratio-level
values because they typically cannot go below zero.
Temperature measured in degrees Celsius and
degrees Fahrenheit is not a ratio variable because 0
under these temperatures scales does not mean no
temperature at all.
2. CATEGORICAL VARIABLES
• 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. Categorical
variable may also have categorized into:
A. NOMINAL VARIABLE- – It represent 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.
Common examples of this variable include 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.
2. CATEGORICAL VARIABLES
B. ORDINAL VARIABLE - It represent categories that can be
ordered from greatest to smallest. This variable has two or more
categories which can be ranked.
- Examples of ordinal variable include education level, income
brackets, etc. An illustration of this is, if you asked people if they
liked listening to music while studying and they could answer
either “NOT VERY MUCH”, “MUCH”, “VERY MUCH” then you have
an ordinal variable. While you can rank them, we cannot place a
value to them. In this type, distances between attributes do not
have any meaning. For example, you used educational attainment
as a variable on survey, you might code elementary school
graduates = 1, high graduates = 2, college undergraduate = 3,
and 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.
 SUMMARY
• Quantitative research is very different from qualitative
research, but they are similar as they have strengths
and weaknesses. The strengths of quantitative research
can be weaknesses of qualitative research and vice
versa.
• Quantitative research has four different research
designs namely, survey, correlation, causal-comparative
and experimental. These research designs have different
objectives and analysis.
VARIABLES – How to Measure
Variables?
MEASURING VARIABLES
• In order to do an analysis, the variables have
to be quantified; this means measuring
giving values and scale.
• Variables must be quantified and scaled for
analysis, with four measurement levels
(nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio)
providing different levels of categorization,
ranking, and interval equality, where ratio
scale offers the most comprehensive
representation of a variable.
DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLE
• A demographic profile is a description or
summary of the key characteristics and
attributes of a specific population or group of
people. These characteristics typically
include information related to age, gender,
ethnicity, race, education, income, marital
status, occupation, location (geographic
region or place of residence), and other
factors that help identify and categorize
individuals within a population.
DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLE
• We can create our own questionnaire as
researchers if we only need basic
demographic data as variables that
respondents can readily provide, such as age,
height, weight, highest educational
attainment, monthly income, etc.
THEORETICAL VARIABLE
• Theoretical variables are often inferred or
deduced from observable indicators or
measurements. Researchers develop theories
or models that propose the existence of
these latent variables to help explain
observed patterns or relationships among
observable variables. By using theoretical
variables, researchers can simplify complex
phenomena and create a framework for
studying and understanding them.
THEORETICAL VARIABLE
• In cases like this, we need to adopt what is
called STANDARDIZED QUESTIONNAIRES.
These are questionnaires that have been
developed specifically to measure a
particular variable. By "developed," it means
they have undergone a separate research
process just to test their validity and
reliability. However, when we use them in our
own research, we still need to test their
validity and reliability to make revisions for
localization and contextualization.
THEORETICAL VARIABLE

EXAMPLES:

Variable: LEVEL OF INTERNET ADDICTION

EXAMPLES:

Variable: PERSONALITY
Measuring Tool: THE BIG FIVE
PERSONALITY TEST
Author: GOLDBERG (1993)
OTHER VARIABLES such as ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS and PERFORMANCE
• Measuring academic performance and
academic achievement involves assessing a
student's or individual's success in
educational activities. Various methods and
tools can be used to measure these
variables, depending on the specific goals of
the assessment.
Here are some common ways to
measure academic performance and
academic achievement:
• Grades and Transcripts
• Standardized Tests
• Classroom Assessments