Practical Research II Notes

Nature of Inquiry and Research -

Quantitative Research

  • Objective, systematic empirical investigation using computational techniques.

  • Emphasizes numerical analysis for unbiased, generalizable results.

  • Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research

  • Qualitative: Interviews, theoretical, measures quality (attitude, behavior, perception).

  • Quantitative: Measures quantity, effectiveness, uses SOPs.

  • Characteristics of Quantitative Research

  1. Objective: Seeks accurate measurement and analysis.
  2. Clearly Defined Research Questions: Well-defined questions for objective answers.
  3. Structured Research Instrument: Uses questionnaires for measurable characteristics (age, socio-economic status).
  4. Numerical Data: Data presented in tables, charts, and graphs.
  5. Large Sample Sizes: Requires large samples for reliable data analysis.
  6. Replication: Studies can be repeated to verify results.
  • Structured Instrument
  1. Modified Adapted Research Instrument
  2. Own Research Instrument
  3. Certificate of Validation
  • Strengths of Quantitative Research
  1. Objective.
  2. Statistical techniques facilitate sophisticated analysis.
  3. Numerical data is analyzed quickly.
  4. Studies are replicable.
  • Weaknesses of Quantitative Research
  1. Requires a large number of respondents.
  2. Costly.
  3. Ignores contextual factors.
  4. Difficult to gather sensitive information.
  5. Data may be incomplete or inaccurate.
  • Importance of Quantitative Research Across Fields
  1. Anthropology
  2. Communication
  3. Sports Medicine
  4. Medical Education
  5. Behavioral Sciences
  6. Education and Psychology
  7. Social Sciences

Kinds of Quantitative Research Designs

  • Research Design: Overall strategy to integrate study components.

  • Quantitative Methods: Objective measurements and statistical analysis via polls, questionnaires, surveys, or pre-existing data.

  • Quantitative Research Design Types

    • Experimental
    • True experimental
    • Quasi-experimental
    • Single Subject
    • Pre-experimental
    • Non-Experimental
    • Survey
    • Historical
    • Observational
    • Correlational
    • Descriptive
    • Comparative Research

  • I. Experimental Research Design

    • Allows control over the situation and identification of cause and effect relationships.
    • Distinguishes placebo effects from treatment effects.
    • Placebo effect is a phenomenon where people report real improvement after taking a fake or nonexistent treatment.
    • Features:
    • Manipulation of independent variables.
    • Limited control over extraneous variables.
    • No randomization and control group.

  • A) Pre-experimental Design

    • Observation after cause and effect factors are implemented.
    • Types:
    1. One-shot Case Design
    2. One-group Pretest-posttest Design
    3. Static-group
    • Features
    • Manipulation of independent variables
    • Limited control over the extraneous variables
    • No randomization and control group

  • B) Quasi-experimental Design

    • Similar to experimental but without random assignment of a control group.
    • Used in field settings.
    • Types:
    • Non randomized block design
    • Time series design

  • C) True Experimental Design

    • Relies on statistical analysis to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
    • Establishes cause-effect relationship.
    • Commonly in physical sciences.
    • Satisfies three Factors
    1. Control and experimental groups
    2. Manipulable variable by researcher.
    3. Random distribution.
    • Types:
    • Post-test only control design
    • Pretest - posttest control group design
    • Factorial design
    • Randomized block design
    • Cross over design

    II. Non-experimental Research Design

  • Variables not deliberately manipulated, setting not controlled.

  • Data collected without changes or treatments.

  • Common in social sciences.

A) Descriptive Research Design
  • Observe, describe, and document aspects of a situation.
  • Starting point for hypothesis generation or theory development.
Types of Descriptive Quantitative Research
  1. SURVEY
    • Used to provide quantitative descriptions of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population.
  2. CORRELATIONAL
    • Investigates relationships between variables without manipulation.
    • Reflects strength and direction of relationships.
Correlational Research has three types:
  • a. Bivariate Correlational Studies – obtain scores from two variables for each subject, then use them to calculate a correlation coefficient. Examples:
    1. Ice cream sales go up (Variable 1) if the temperature is high (Variable 2). (Positive correlation)
    2. Crime in the community increases (Variable 1) as the number of police personnel decreases (Variable 2). (Negative correlation)
    3. Increased ice cream sales are not correlated to crime increase. (No correlation)
  • b. Prediction Studies – use correlation coefficients to show how one variable (the predictor variable) predicts another (the criterion variable). Example: National Achievement Test (NAT) scores in Grade 12 are used to predict students’ scores in college entrance exams.
  • c. Multiple Regression Prediction Studies – all of the variables can contribute to the overall prediction in an equation that adds together the predictive power of each identified variable.
  • COMPARATIVE RESEARCH
    • Comparing and contrasting two or more samples on one or more variables.
    • Prediction plus the variable that affects the other variable.
B) Historical Research Design
  • Collect, verify, and synthesize evidence from the past to establish facts.
C) Observational Research Design
  • Observing behavior in natural or laboratory setting.
  • Non-experimental, no manipulation of independent variables.

Nature and Types of Variable

  • Quantitative Variables: Measured in numbers.

  • Variable: Characteristics with two or more mutually exclusive values.

  • Measurable characteristic that varies.

  • Opposite of constant (something that doesn’t change).

  • Examples of Phenomena with Variables

    • Climate Change: sea level, temperature, carbon emission, rainfall.
    • Crime and Violence: robberies, murders, prisoners, victims, law enforcers, convictions, carnapping.
TYPES OF VARIABLE

  1. DEPENDENT VARIABLE

    • Also known as Criterion or Outcome variable.
    • Variable affected by the independent variable.
    • They are the outcomes or results of the influence of the independent variable. That is why it is also called the outcome variable.

  2. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

    • Variable that is presumed to influence other variables.

    • The presumed cause, whereas the dependent variable is the presumed effect.

    • Kind of variable that probably causes, influences, or affects outcomes.

    • - Example: How stress affects the mental state of human beings?

      • Independent Variable Stress
      • Dependent Variable Mental state of human beings

  3. CONTINUOUS VARIABLE

    • A variable that can take an infinite number of values that can occur within a 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 Variable
      • 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 your debt from your assets), etc. In temperature, this may illustrate as the difference between a temperature of 60 degrees and 50 degrees is the same as the difference between 30 degrees and 20 degrees.
      • The interval between values makes sense and can be interpreted.
      • b. Ratio Variable
      • It has values that lie along an evenly dispersed range of numbers when there is absolute zero, as opposed to net worth, which can have a negative debt-to-income.
      • It possesses the properties of interval variables and has a clear definition of zero, indication that there is none of that variable.
      • Examples of which are height, weight, and distance. Most scores stemming from response to survey items are ratio-level values because they typically cannot go below zero.
      • Temperature measured in degrees Celsius and degrees Fahrenheit is not a ratio variable because under these temperatures scales does not mean no temperature at all.

  4. DISCRETE VARIABLE

    • This is also known as a Categorical or Classificatory variable.
    • This is any variable that has a limited number of distinct values and which cannot be divided into fractions like sex, blood group, and number of children in the family.
    • a. Nominal Variables
      • Variables that have two or more categories, but which do not have an intrinsic order or 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.
      • Dichotomous Variable
      • Are nominal variables which have only two categories or levels.
      • Ex. male & female
      • b. Ordinal Variables
      • Variables that have two or more categories just like nominal variables only the categories can also be ordered or ranked.
      • It represents categories that can be ordered from greatest to smallest.
      • Examples of ordinal variables 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 on them.
      • In this type, distances between attributes do not have any meaning.
      • For example, if you used educational attainment as a variable on a survey, you might code elementary school graduates = 1, high graduates = 2, college undergraduate = 3, and college graduate = 4. In this measure, a 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 as the distance between 1 and 2.

  5. INTERVENING/MEDIATING VARIABLE

    • A variable whose whole existence is inferred but it cannot be measured.
    • Variables that "stand between" the independent and dependent variables, and they show the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable.
    • It is caused by the independent variable and is itself a cause of the dependent variable.

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  • Example: Determining the effect of video clips on learning ability of students of M.Phil.

    • Independent Variable Video clips
    • Dependent Variable Learning ability of students of M.Phil.
    • Intervening Variable Anxiety, fatigue, motivation, improper diet, etc.
    1. CONTROL/CONSTANT VARIABLE
    • A variable that is NOT allowed to be changed unpredictably during an experiment.
    • As they are ideally expected to remain the same, they are also called constant 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.
    • They may be demographic or personal variables that need to be "controlled" so that the true influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable can be determined.
    1. EXTRANEOUS VARIABLE
    • Are to be controlled by you as a researcher or experimenter.
    • This variable exists as “nuisance variables” whose potency or influence needs to go down to prevent it from affecting the results negatively.
    • Quantitative researchers try to count human behaviors that they attempt to count multiple variables at the same time.
    1. CONFOUNDING
    • Kind of variables that are not actually measured or observed in a study. They exist but their influence cannot be directly detected in a study.
    • Researchers comment on the influence of confounding variables after the study has been completed, because these variables may have operated to explain the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables, but they were not or could not be easily assessed.

  • HYPOTHESIS

  • It is a tentative explanation that accounts for a set of facts and can be tested by further investigation.

Research Topic, Problem, and Title

  • Research Topic (Research Problem)

    • Intellectual stimulus calling for an answer via scientific inquiry.
    • General questions about relations among variables.

  • Formulation of a Research Title
    *A. The Title must contain the following elements:

    *The subject matter or research problem.

    *Setting or locale of the study.

    *The respondents or participants involved in the study.

    *The time or period when the study was conducted, (if the title becomes too long because of this element, the timeframe or period may be omitted except in evaluation studies.)

    B. The Title must be broad enough to include all aspects of the study but brief and concise as possible.

    C. The use of terms such as “Analysis of,” “A study of,” “An investigation of,” and the like should be avoided. All these are understood to have been done in a research. To shorten the title, delete the terms “Assessment” or “Evaluation,” if these are already emphasized in the text.

    D. If the title contains more than one line, it should be written in an inverted pyramid. When typed or encoded in the title page, all words in the title are in an inverted pyramid.

    E. If possible, the title should not be longer than 15 substantive words.

    F. Avoid a long, detailed title that gives too much information.

  • Characteristics of a Good Title

    • Informative, not vague.
    • Straightforward phrase.
    • No punctuation at the end.
    • Use italics instead of underlining.

  • Criteria in Choosing a Research Problem

    1. New or different.
    2. Original.
    3. Significant to the field.
    4. Arouses intellectual curiosity.
    5. Of researcher’s interest.
    6. Modest for a beginner.
    7. Clear.
    8. Specific.
    9. Considers researcher’s training.
    10. Considers data availability.
    11. Considers instrument availability.
    12. Considers financial capacity.
    13. Considers time factor.

  • Basis for Selecting the Problem

    • Technical Criteria
    • Significant to the field.
    • Pioneering.
    • Originality.
    • Arouses curiosity.
    • Relevance to degree.
    • Data manageability.
    • Instrument availability.
    • Personal Criteria
    • Interest.
    • Training.
    • Expertise.
    • Financial capacity.
    • Time factor.

  • Research Title

    • Product of real-world dilemmas, reading, viewing, interactions, and reflection.
    • Capsule form of the research problem.
    • Must be original, clear, concise, and specific.

  • Techniques in Narrowing Down a Topic into a Research Question

    • Examine the Literature:
    • Replicate previous research.
    • Explore unexpected findings.
    • Follow suggestions for future research.
    • Extend an existing explanation.
    • Challenge findings.
    • Specify the intervening process.
    • Talk Over Ideas with Others
    • Seek knowledgeable people.
    • Discuss with those holding different opinions.
    • Apply to a Specific Context
    • Focus on a specific time period.
    • Narrow to a specific society.
    • Consider subgroups.
    • Define the Aim or Desired Outcome of the Study
    • Type of study (explanatory, exploratory, descriptive).
    • Applied or basic research.

Background of the Study, Scope and Delimitation

  • Background of the Study

    • Focuses attention on importance and validity.
    • General orientation to the problem area.
    • Includes:
    • Discussion of the problem.
    • Concepts and ideas related to the problem.
    • Discussion of existing conditions and aims.

  • Statement of the Problem

    • Basic difficulty, issue, concern.

  • Research Questions

    • Layder (2013): search for the best explanation.
    • Types:
    • Problem questions (general).
    • Topic questions (specific).

  • Indicating Scope and Delimitation

    • Sets boundaries and parameters.
    • Scope: domain of the research.
    • Delimit: excludes factors or variables.
    • Answers the basic questions:
    • What: topic and variables.
    • Where: venue.
    • When: time frame.
    • Why: objectives.
    • Who: subjects.
    • How: methodology.

Literature Review

  • Doing a Literature Review

    • Key academic skill.
    • Situates research within the wider academic community.

  • The Literature Review

    • Reports critical review of relevant literature.
    • Identifies a gap for research to address.

  • Goals of a Literature Review

    1. Demonstrate familiarity and establish credibility.
    • Increases reader confidence.
    1. Show prior path and link current project.
    • Demonstrates relevance.
    1. Integrate and summarize.
    • Points out agreements, disagreements, and questions.
    1. Learn new ideas and stimulate them.
    • Identifies blind alleys and suggests hypotheses.

  • How to Evaluate Articles?

    1. Examine the Title
    • Specific, indicates research without describing results.
    • Avoids yes/no questions.
    1. Read the Abstract
    • Summarizes critical information.
    • Gives purpose, methods, and findings.
    1. Read the Article
    • Skim, then read the conclusion.
    • Spend time and effort.
    • Conditions: high, focused, background.

  • Sources of a Literature Review

    • Print, electronic, or visual materials.
    • Classified into:
    • Primary Sources
      Letters, correspondences, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, official or research topics, patents and designs, and empirical research articles
    • Secondary Sources
      Academic journals, articles, (other than empirical research, articles or reports) conference proceedings, books (mimeographs or chapters of books
    • Tertiary Sources – encyclopedia, Dictionaries, atlases, handbooks

  • The Literature Review Process

    • Four-step process:
    • Select a topic.
    • Select and choose literature.
    • Analyze and interpret literature.
    • Write the review.

  • Types of Literature Review

    • Overview of sources, demonstrating fit within the field.
    1. ARGUMENTATIVE REVIEW
    • Selectively examines literature to support or refute an argument.
    1. INTEGRATIVE REVIEW
    • Reviews, critiques, and synthesizes literature to generate new frameworks.
    1. HISTORICAL REVIEW
    • Examines the past to give an account of what happened.
    1. METHODOLOGICAL REVIEW
    • Focuses on methods of analysis.
    1. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
    • Attains a conclusion regarding the chosen topic.
    1. THEORETICAL REVIEW
    • Examines the body of theory, establishes existing theories.

  • Function of the Review of Literature and Studies

    1. Justification of the study.
    2. Identify gaps of related studies.
    3. Provide rationale.
    4. Basis to support findings.

Synthesising Information from Relevant Literature

  • Synthesis

    • Discussion drawing on multiple sources.
    • Infers relationships among sources.
    • Types:
    • Explanatory Synthesis
      Helps readers understand a topic. Its primary aim is to present the facts in a reasonably objective manner.
    • Argument Synthesis
      Its purpose is for you to present your own point of view with the support of relevant facts drawn from services and presented in a logical manner.

  • Categories of Sources (Fraenkel, 2015)

    • Documents: written or printed materials.
    • Numerical Records: numerical data in printed form.
    • Oral Statements: stories, myths, tales, legends, chants, songs.
    • Relics: objects providing information about the past.

  • How to Write a Synthesis

    1. Consider your purpose in writing.
    2. Select and read.
    3. Formulate a thesis.
    4. Decide on source use.
    5. Develop an organizational draft plan.
    6. Write the first draft.
    7. Revise your synthesis.

  • Techniques for Writing a Synthesis

    • Summary: organizes relevant information and sources.
    • Example or Illustration: reference a particularly illuminating example.