What Quantitative Research Is
The week devoted to this subject never states a definition of it. What it states instead is four properties, three study types and twelve terms — and this page works out how much of that survives contact with the article the week sets as its own reading.
The account the source gives, in its own words
This week of the teaching material had been recorded in this library as missing from every previous delivery. It has since been supplied in full — a slide deck of twenty-three slides, of which two are boilerplate, and a study-notes document in two formats. The record of the absence stands as a fact about the source; what follows is what the material actually contains now that it can be read.
The week opens with two sentences and no heading beyond "Introduction". They are the closest thing the material offers to a statement of what the quantitative approach is committed to.
Four commitments are named in the first sentence and four stages in the second. Both counts are derived here from the lists; the source states neither. Read as a sequence, the second sentence is the only process model the week supplies.
- Adopt or generate a theory
- Use deductive reasoning to state a proposition or hypothesis
- Gather quantitative data
- Analyse it statistically
- Draw conclusions that may or may not support the proposition
Two things about that sequence are worth holding onto before you use it. The first is that its final clause is unusually honest for teaching material: conclusions "may or may not support the proposition". The second is that "deductive logic" and "deductive reasoning" are asserted twice in two sentences and defined nowhere in the week, and the complementary term "inductive" does not appear in the week at all. If you need the contrast, take it from Inductive and Deductive Reasoning in Research and cite it there.
Four properties, and not one of them is a definition
The next slide is titled "What is quantitative research?". It answers with four statements, quoted exactly and in the order given: "A systematic management of data and relationships"; "Employs numerical models, theories and hypotheses"; "Measuring is the key concept"; "Assumes the reality/truth can be measured".
Take each at face value and you have a usable set of markers for recognising quantitative work when you meet it in a literature review: it models numerically, it puts measurement at the centre, and it assumes what it is interested in can be measured. What you do not have is a definition, and the slide's own title asks for one.
The three types of study the source names
The same slide lists three types under the heading "Types:". Each is reproduced below exactly as given, including the parenthetical glosses, because two of the three have defects that matter to anyone trying to classify their own design.
THE THREE TYPES, AS THE SOURCE DEFINES THEM
| Type | Definition as given | What you can and cannot do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Experimental | "the researcher controls and manipulates the independent variable to observe the effect of the change on another dependent variable" | Usable. It names the two variable roles and the direction of the manipulation. Neither variable role is defined in this week; both are defined two weeks later. |
| Quasi-experimental (almost) | "the researcher controls when and who to measure, but has no control over when and who to exposure" | Defective at the point that carries its meaning. "Exposure" is a noun standing in a verb position, so the intended contrast — you control the measurement but not the allocation — has to be inferred. |
| Non-experimental (single case) | "continuous assessment of behaviour over a period of time that involves intervention effects over time" | The parenthesis narrows a whole class to one design. Cross-sectional, cohort, case-control and survey designs are all non-experimental and none is a single case. |
Quoted from the supplied teaching source. Both defects are recorded rather than repaired: silently correcting the quasi-experimental line would mean deciding what it claims.
The experimental definition is the strongest of the three and it is worth using. It gives you a test you can apply to your own project in one question: are you changing something and observing what happens to something else, or are you observing both as you find them? If you are not manipulating anything, you are not running an experiment, whatever else you call the study.
The same design, on both sides of the same line
The week sets, as required reading, a published article on quantitative research design. That article is not the teaching material. It comes from a sport and exercise science web journal, it was published in 2000, it states its own length as 4,318 words, and its worked examples are athletes and physiological measures. It is by a considerable margin the most technically substantial document supplied, and that is exactly why its authority must not be read backwards onto the week that links to it.
The article divides quantitative studies two ways — descriptive and experimental — and classifies the repeated-measurement single-subject design, in which one or a few subjects are measured before and after an intervention, as experimental. The slide describes the same design in almost the same words and files it under non-experimental. Neither document acknowledges the other. The article's own division is set out at Descriptive and Experimental Study Designs.
The vocabulary issued alongside it
Two slides then define twelve terms, six each. Four of them — population, sample, variables and data — are handled at Population, Sample, Variables and Data, and two more, reliability and validity, on the measurement page. The remaining six are the statistical vocabulary the week hands you, and they are set out below with the qualifications each one needs.
THE STATISTICAL TERMS, AS THIS WEEK DEFINES THEM
| Term | Definition as given | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics | "The branch of mathematics that transforms data into useful information for decision makers" | One slide later the same word names a numerical measure of a sample. The study notes supply a third sense: "A statistic is a number summarizing some aspect of the data". |
| Descriptive statistics | "Collecting, summarising, and describing data" | This makes data collection a branch of statistics. Nothing else in the subject does. A later week defines the same term as describing the distribution of relationships among variables. |
| Inferential statistics | "Drawing conclusions and/or making decisions concerning a population based only on sample data" | Says nothing about randomness or probability. A later week's definition requires a random sample. Both are in the material and neither acknowledges the other. |
| Census | "The process of collecting information about every member of a population" | Defined once and never used again in the week — not even on the slide that argues why you would sample rather than examine everybody. |
| Parameter | "A numerical measure that describes a characteristic of a population" | Restated four slides later without the word "numerical", so the second statement is broader than the first. |
| A statistic | "A numerical measure that describes a characteristic of a sample" | Restated on a sampling slide, where it has no obvious business. The pairing with parameter is the best-built concept in the week. |
The parameter and statistic pair is worth learning from this material and not elsewhere, because the material gets it right: two definitions in parallel, differing in exactly one word, population against sample. That single contrast is what licences the whole inferential move the week describes and never performs. Where you need the descriptive and inferential split developed further, Descriptive and Inferential Statistics carries the later week's account of it.
What the week says you will be able to do
Three learning objectives are stated, introduced by "At the completion of this topic you should be able to:". Quoted exactly, they are: "Interpret concepts and measures"; "Perceive reliability and validity generalization and replication"; "Evaluate external and internal sources". The second contains no punctuation and admits at least three readings — four items, three items, or two paired items. The source does not punctuate it and this page does not choose for it.
The consolidated audit across the six weeks now held records fourteen stated objectives, none fully delivered, four partially delivered and ten not delivered at all. This week contributes three of the fourteen: one partially delivered and two not delivered. Those are the reconciled figures and the only ones this library cites; the full reckoning sits at The Six-Week Objective Audit.
Using this account in your own project
The material is thin, and the honest way to use thin material is to take the parts that hold and to name the parts you have sourced elsewhere. The distinction below is this page's, built on what the source does and does not support; it is not a classification the source itself offers.
Take from this material
- The five-stage process from theory to conclusion, including the clause that conclusions may fail to support the proposition
- The experimental test: are you manipulating something, or observing both things as you find them?
- The parameter and statistic contrast, which is the cleanest concept in the week
- The stratified and cluster distinction taught later in the same week, which is genuinely well built
Source elsewhere and cite there
- A definition of quantitative research, which the week does not give
- Definitions of deductive and inductive reasoning, asserted here and defined nowhere
- A definition of a concept, used four times in the deck and defined none
- Any classification of study designs you intend to defend, since the material holds four incompatible ones
Which part of this week answers your question
Before you cite this week in a methodology section
- Every design classification you use names the document it came from
- No number from the set reading appears in your text without its discipline attached to it
- Terms the week uses but does not define are cited to the text you actually read
- Where the week and its set reading disagree, you have stated both rather than picked one silently
- You have not represented the four characterising properties as a definition
What to carry forward
- The week characterises quantitative research and never defines it. Say so rather than manufacturing a definition on its behalf.
- Three study types are named; one is defined defectively and one has a whole class collapsed into a single design.
- The article the week sets contradicts the week on the classification of a design both describe. Report both.
- Numbers from that article belong to sport and exercise science in 2000. They are not standards and not transferable without an argument the material never makes.
- Of the fourteen objectives stated across the six weeks now on record, none is fully delivered; this week's three include two that are not delivered at all.
Frequently asked questions
Does the supplied teaching source define quantitative research?
No. The slide titled "What is quantitative research?" answers with four properties — systematic management of data and relationships, use of numerical models and hypotheses, measurement as the key concept, and the assumption that reality can be measured. None is a definition, and no other part of the week supplies one. Take a definition from a methods text and cite it there.
Are there three types of quantitative study or two?
It depends which document you read. The teaching slide names three — experimental, quasi-experimental and non-experimental. The article the same week sets as required reading names two, descriptive and experimental, and puts one design on the opposite side of the line from the slide. The material never reconciles them, so name your source when you use either.
Can I use the sample-size figures from the week's set reading?
Only with attribution and a discipline label. Those figures were stated by one author in 2000 about research design in sport and exercise science, where the measures are physiological. They are not standards, not benchmarks and not project-management requirements, and the teaching material never restates any of them in its own voice.
The week promises I will understand replication. Where is it covered?
Nowhere. The word appears exactly once in the entire week, inside the objective that promises it, with no occurrences across the twenty-three slides or the study notes. The same is true of the "external and internal sources" named in the third objective. Plan to source both elsewhere.
How much of the week is the teaching material's own writing?
Less than the length suggests. Nearly half the study notes reproduce a statistics resource page from a sport-science journal, and two further sections reproduce the set reading verbatim with passages deleted. The slides are the subject's own voice; large parts of the notes are not, and the notes retain the borrowed author's first-person voice without identifying him in the running text.
References and source attribution
- Hopkins 2000, 'Quantitative Research Design', a sport-science web journal, vol. 4, issue 1 — the article set as this week's required reading; journal title, address and author given names scrubbed. Cited as the 2000 version because that is the version the subject sets; the article itself points to a later revision.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Veal, A. J. 2005, Business Research Methods: A Managerial Approach, Longman.
- The supplied teaching source: the twenty-three-slide deck on the nature of quantitative research and both copies of the accompanying study notes, which are the basis of every statement attributed here to "the source" or "the week".
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Classify my project against the three study types this week names, and tell me where the classification is unsafe.
- Write the paragraph of my methodology chapter that says why my study is quantitative, using only what this material supports.
- What does the week's set reading say that the week itself contradicts?
- Which terms does this week use without defining, and what do I need to source elsewhere?
- Draft a 375-word answer to the week's assessable task about methods and issues for structuring a research study.