Quantitative Research?

(ED 910: Advanced Methods in Educational Research) Virtual Workshop on Methodological Perspectives December 13 th , 2006 Dr. P. Hart University of Regina Richard Klyne

Quantitative History

Opinions, values, metaphysical introspection were to be held separate from the process of the disinterested observation of events. Moreover, from the Cartesian tradition, the concept of [one form of] logical reasoning was employed as part of the language of an inductive science or the generation of ideas based on theoretical propositions or hypotheses

Quantitative Research

1. Measurement allows us to delineate fine differences between people in terms of the characteristic in question 2. Measurement gives us a consistent device or yardstick for making such distinctions 3. Measurement provides a basis for more precise estimates of the degree of relationships between concepts

Quantitative Research

What is important is whether measures are reliable and whether they are valid representations of the concepts they are supposed to be tapping

Quantitative History

Falsification, is thus privileged over verification on the premise that, however much favorable evidence there might be to support a proposition, there can never be enough to completely verify any conclusion…[and] the utilization of probabilities is equally problematic, since such appeals might be constructed as being as much an inductive step as the verification model itself

Quantitative Research

• Stability • Internal reliability • Inter-observer consistency

Quantitative Research

If the measure is not stable over time, it simply cannot be providing a valid measure. The measure could not be tapping the concept it is supposed to be related to if the measure fluctuated. If the measure fluctuates, it may be measuring different things on different occasions. If measure lacks internal reliability, it means that a multiple indicator measure is actually measuring two or more different things. Therefore, the measure cannot be valid

Closing The Divide

First, in the absence of respondent validation exercises, the notion of that qualitative research is more adept at gaining access to the point of view of those studied than quantitative research is invariable assumed rather than demonstrated

Closing The Divide

Second, if the design of attitude questions is based on prior questioning that seeks to bring out the range of possible attitudinal positions on an issue…attitudinal questions may be better able to gain access to meaning

Polarizing The Divide

Generalizing the findings is severely limited when comparing groups that are not randomly equivalent and analyzing associations that are not based on data that cover the full range of possible variability

Polarizing The Divide

Data are representations of phenomena in nature, society, education, and culture. Research activities are polarized into qualitative and quantitative classifications based on how phenomena are represented

Polarizing The Divide

In fact, qualitative discontinuities are salient in perception only if they are contiguously unfolded against the backdrop of a moment that varies continuously and only if they present a sufficient gap or threshold of discrimination

Polarizing The Divide

In qualitative research once the data are constructed, statistical methods constrain and define the type of inferences that can be made on the basis of the data. Yet there are many stages of the data construction that require “subjective”, “defensible” judgments by the researcher…In quantitative research…We can understand these tests [measures or surveys] as tools by means of which researchers attempt to capture a participant’s knowledge, opinions, feelings, and so on. All of these are constructs that are not directly observable

Polarizing The Divide

The formerly distinct forms…as now located on different parts of the same scale, which is characterized by low levels of inference on one end and high levels of inference on the other end…The scale simultaneously is continuous because achieved in research praxis, and discontinuous, because it involves translations from representation to representation