Reflections: Quantitative Research Methods

This week, had some very interesting articles to read. We were also very fortunate to meet one of the researchers of the papers that we read: Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment written by Martha Cleveland-Innes.
Something I found particularly interesting is that quantitative methods of doing research can be used to quantify human behavioral patterns  in order to derive some valuable information.

When a researcher selects a method to carry out her research, he must be ready to reasonably justify their selection and must be certain of it. The conceptualization of the research method should be good.

A key element in carrying out research is sampling. Sampling can be defined as the process of selecting units, e.g. people, from a population of interest so as to study that sample and derive results that can be fairly generalized about the population as a whole. The process of carrying out sampling is very critical and a lot of attention should be put into it. Random sample give the best results, but most often prove to be difficult especially in educational institutions. This is because respondent in the sample are free to refuse to take part in the research, and thus a researcher will be unable to carry out a pure experimental design.

After research has been carried out, there are research data analysis tools that are used to analyze the information gathered by the researcher. This analysis of all the responses in a research study are studied and conclusions deduced from it. One such tool of analyzing data is SPSS [Statistical Package for the Social Sciences], which we learned about and had the chance to use and do a basic analysis of the statistics provided to us. 

Once all the data of a research has been coded into SPSS, there are different functions that one can select so as to analyze the data: different variables can be compared to others. Also, one can separate the data e.g. according to gender and analyze the responses of the different genders separately.

SPSS is an important tool for researchers and especially in the field of media where the industry relies heavily on statistics of the content produced and the stakeholders in the entire process of production to viewing.  Although we covered some basic concepts in the lecture, I am keen to increase my knowledge about this tool and how to use it.