Theme 4, Blog Post 2: Quantitative research
What I
understood from the lecture is that quantitative methods seek to gather
numerical evidence in support of a hypothesis that is being tested.
Quantitative data may be obtained in different ways, depending on the corpus/sample
of the research.
For instance,
if we would like to determine the variety of coverage in different news outlets
(which is the case with the article I chose for my first blog post), we could gather
a body of news/broadcast material, published by these outlets in a particular
period of time, and count the number of topics covered by each news outlet and
the number of articles dedicated to each topic. When working with people we could
ask them to fill in one or more questionnaires that we have borrowed from
previous research (if such questionnaires are available) or design a
questionnaire that serves our particular purpose. Then we translate the volunteers’
answers into numerical data and use statistical tests to interpret it.
Of course,
quantitative methods or data alone mean nothing without a theoretical
background to justify why a particular research is important and should be
conducted; why it is important to look at a problem from one angle and not from
another (for instance, this angle has been overlooked by previous research; or
previous research has failed to explain this or that aspect of the chosen angle;
or previous research does not provide convincing proof, etc.); why a
quantitative approach is more suitable for the aim of this research than, say,
a qualitative approach.
Not to
mention that theory is extremely important in determining where to look for evidence
in the first place. For instance, why choose to study newspaper articles rather
than TV news broadcasts. When I wrote my Bachelor’s thesis in
2014, I had to justify my use of quantitative content analysis on a total of 436
articles published in the 8 biggest daily newspapers in Britain for a period of
1 year. My goal was to prove that the social unrest prior to the opening of the
British labour market for A2 (Bulgarian and Romanian) citizens was a classic
example of a moral panic.
Theory also
provides a foundation for the kind of evidence one should look for – what information
is relevant to our hypothesis and what should be omitted due to irrelevance or
danger of skewing the results – and determines each step of the research
process in order to get valid and relevant results. For example, based on my
literature review (the work of previous researchers on moral panic, Other-presentation
in migration discourse, dehumanization of the “Other”, disaster metaphors, etc.),
I carefully designed a coding schedule to filter through all the information
and gather only that, which is relevant to my hypothesis, i.e. the use of
metaphors; positive self-presentation and negative
Other-presentation, etc. In the course of my research I had to redesign the coding schedule several times, because while reading all those articles I found new and relevant information that I had not come up with categories for.
Regardless of
how thorough we are, there are often results that have to be omitted due to
irrelevance to our study. We also need our theoretical framework to interpret and
explain the acquired data and its importance. How do our results support or
differ from the results of previous research? Do they support or disprove our
hypothesis? Have we discovered something new and interesting that is worthy of
conducting more research? In short (and
in the immortal style of Kant), when it comes to knowledge production, theory
without method is fruitless (unless we're trying to solve a metaphysical problem) and method without theory is empty :D.
Thank you for a great post, it's very well written and informative. You seem to have understood this theme very well and have some great previous experience with quantitative research, and you explained it very well. I found your topic for your thesis quite interesting, and like you wrote, it's important to determine where to look for evidence, and explain why a specific research is important and why it should be conducted.
ReplyDeleteHi you there! It is indeed great reflection! I totally agree with you that a researcher has to really prove himself by theoretical part of study - why it is important to talk about things he is researching, what new he found, and what is his contribution to knowledge production? It is really fascinating how each of this theme goes back to the first texts we read, especially the one written by Kant. I agree that you have to think form both sides: method without theory does not have foundation and vice versus. Thanks for your great thoughts!
ReplyDeleteHi! Another nice reflection from you!
ReplyDeleteI liked your comments on irrationality for specific studies. I think this is a trap many researchers fall into; in their quest for legitimacy, I believe many researchers to adapt specific methods that others (who's work has been accepted and celebrated) have used, leaving them unable to answer their own initial questions.
In the beginning of you post, you write that questionnaires can be either written by the researchers themselves, or reused from others. I think that the reusing of questionnaires offer unnecessary risk; make your own questionnaire and certify that your method is valid for YOUR study!
That was interesting to know about your journalistic research and the methods you used conducting it, and it is also a good illustration of how important is to choose the appropriate method. You developed the hypothesis from the very beginning (social unrest as a moral panic), and tried to find arguments in support of it. Was there any risk of bias towards this topic, and the consequent elimination of the data that could your hypothesis wrong? Probably, yes, but in this case quantitative (statistic) methods served as the safety-lock.
ReplyDeleteOverall, good job!
Hi, thanks for the interesting reflection. I do agree with your point, it's not an easy task to conduct the quantitative method on the research, especially the result can lead to the biased one. However, you did make a good point here: there are some limitations on doing the research and there's ways to improve to reflect on the problem.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, you seem to have a pretty clear understanding of quantitative research. You mentioned how you filtered the data that you found relevant during your bachelor's thesis, I wonder whether you think that this stage of the process can already be biased. I recently read an article where a group of four people had to scan articles, in order to make sure that the data collected where considered relevant by all - otherwise the researcher where afraid the data would be biased. I don't necessarily think that this kind of filtering is needed in every study, however I believe it validates the results. After all, not all studies have the resources the process all data X number of times, but I think that by keeping a criticising approach, as you seem to do, can ensure a rather objective result.
I like how you in your post highlight the importance of the theoretical background. What surprised me during the lecture was that the cost for questionnaires developed by others could be quite substantial. In one sense its only fair since I guess since there has been a lot of time and effort put on generating these.
ReplyDeleteI think what you write about you generating themes for your bachelor’s thesis shows how the deductive and the inductive approaches can be somewhat combined and an example of how iteration is used in research. You started of with some themes already decided, based on the previous literature but as you were working on the data, new themes emerged, which resulted in you redesigning the coding schedule. Good example!
As always with your posts, it's clear that you've spent time on your reflection and it's a pleasure to read.
ReplyDeleteI like that you highlight the necessity to keep research relevant and giving practical examples of when manipulation is justified. I also like that you highlight the possibility of a rejected hypothesis, this can sometimes be a problem with researcher bias (not seeing a rejected hypothesis as an option and therefore manipulating the research, for example).
Your own study as example is good because it shows your practical application and understanding of the theme. It was also very interesting to read that you have chosen this topic. Was it not hard to remain neutral, as you (if I've understood correctly) yourself has been one of the Bulgarians entering the British labor market?
Yeah, well, it was, but, unlike here, in London I got loads of feedback from my mentor and I got to discuss bits and pieces of my work with other lecturers as well. They pointed out different existing and potential issues and we discussed possible solutions. And the end result was better than anyone had expected.
DeleteHello, thank you for clear statements and good reflection! I like your way of explaining the causalities and providing good examples from your previous experience. I myself feel the theoretical framework extremely important, as well. You summarize it well in this sentence: "Theory also provides a foundation for the kind of evidence one should look for." The previous research has enormous impact on guiding the choice of method, as well. Finding the new angles that haven't yet been covered on the topic requires careful justification and mirroring the desired aims to previous studies and the methods that were used conducting them.
ReplyDelete