Lesson 2. Importance of Quantitative Research in Different Fields
Lesson 2. Importance of Quantitative Research in Different 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. Then, only
the faculty in higher education has so much interest in conducting researches, but now even the teachers
in the basic education are engrossed in researches and devote time and effort in conducting researches
to improve educational practices that may lead to more quality learning of the students. Many teachers
do action researches because there is a serious need to identify the problems of the deteriorating quality
of education. By doing so, they can address systematically and make educational decisions regarding the
problems met. Innovative teaching strategies are product of research.
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.
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. 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 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.
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.