KINDS OF QUANTITATIVE

RESEARCH DESIGNS
 Research Design
• Refers to the overall strategy that you
choose in order to integrate the
different components of the study in a
coherent and logical way, thereby
ensuring you will effectively address
the research problem.
• Constitutes the blueprint for the
selection, measurement and analysis
of data.
 CLASSFICATIONS OF
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
DESIGNS
1. Experimental Research Design
• allows the researcher to control the situation
• allows the researcher to answer the question:
What causes something to occur?”
• allows the researcher to identify cause and
effect relationships between variables and to
distinguish placebo effects from treatment
effects.
• supports the ability to limit alternative
explanations and to infer direct causal
relationships in the study; the approach
provides the highest level of evidence for
single studies.
TYPES OF EXPERIMENTAL
RESEARCH DESIGNS
 1. True Experimental Research
Design
• Controls for both time-related and
group related threats. Two features
mark true experiments – two or more
differently related groups and random
assignment to these groups. These
features require that the researchers
have control over the experimental
treatment and the power to place
subjects in groups.
• Employs both treated and control
groups to deal with time-related rival
explanations.
• A control group reflects changes other
than those due to the treatment that
occur during the time of the study.
Such changes include effects of
outside events, maturation by the
subjects, changes in measures and
impact of any pre-tests.
• Offers the highest internal validity of all
the designs.
2. Quasi-Experimental Research
Design
• The researcher can collect more data,
either by scheduling more observations or
finding more existing measures.
• Quasi-experimental design differs from
true experimental design by the absence
of random assignment of subjects to
different conditions. What quasi-
experiments have in common with true
experiments is that some subjects receive
an intervention and provide data likely to
reflect its impact.
 TYPES OF QUASI-
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
DESIGNS
 1. Non-equivalent control
group design
• Refers to the chance failure
of random assignment to
equalize the conditions by
converting a true
experiment into this kind of
design, for purposes of
analysis
2. Interrupted Time Series Design

• Employs multiple measures

before and after the
experimental intervention.
• It differs from the single-
group pre-experiment that
has only one pretest and
one posttest.
 3. Pre-Experimental Research
Design
• Apply to experimental designs with the
least internal validity.
• One type of pre-experiment, the single
group, pre-test-post-test design,
measures the group two times, before
and after the intervention.
• Instead of comparing the pretest with
the posttest within one group, the
posttest of the treated groups is
compared with that of an untreated
group.
• Measuring the effect as the difference
between groups marks this as
between-subjects design. Assuming
both groups experienced the same
time-related influences, the
comparison group feature should
protect this design from the rival
explanations that threaten the within-
subject design.
 1. Non-experimental Research
Design
• The researcher observes the
phenomena as they occur naturally
and no external variables are
introduced.
• The variables are not deliberately
manipulated nor is the setting
controlled.
• Researchers collect data without
making changes or introducing
treatments.
Descriptive Research Design
• The main purpose is to observe,
describe and document aspects of a
situation as it naturally occurs and
sometimes to serve as a starting point
for hypothesis generation or theory
development.
TYPES OF DESCRIPTIVE
RESEARCH DESIGNS
 1. Survey
• A research design used when the
researcher intends to provide a
quantitative or numeric description of
trends, attitudes or opinions of a
population by studying a sample of that
population (Creswell, 2003). For example,
universities regularly float surveys to
determine customer satisfaction, that is,
the students’ attitudes toward or opinions
regarding student services like the
canteen, clinic, security, the guidance
and counseling services, and the like.
 2. Correlational
Correlational Research has three types:
1. Bivariate correlational studies – obtain
scores from two variables for each
subject, then use them to calculate a
correlation coefficient. The term
bivariate implies that the two variables
are correlated (variables are selected
because they are believed to be
related).
Examples: Children of wealthier (variable
1), better educated (variable 2) parents
earn higher salaries as adults.
 Prediction Studies
• Use correlation co-efficient to show
how one variable (the predictor
variable) predicts another (the
criterion variable).
Examples: Which high school applicants
should be admitted to college?
 Multiple Regression Prediction
Studies
• Suppose the high school GPA is not the
sole predictor of college GPA, what
might be other good predictors? All of
these variables can contribute to the
over-all prediction in an equation that
adds together the predictive power of
each identified variable.
 3. Ex-Post Facto Research
Design
 These are non-experimental designs that are
used to investigate causal relationships.
 they examine whether one or more pre-
existing conditions could possibly have
caused subsequent differences in groups of
subjects.
 Researchers attempt to discover whether
differences between groups have results in an
observed difference in the independent
variables.
Examples: What is the effect of home schooling
on social skills of adolescents?
 4. Comparative Design
 Involves comparing and contrasting two
or more samples of study subjects on one
or more variables, often at a single point
of time. Specifically, this design is used to
compare two distinct groups on the basis
of selected attributes such as knowledge
level, perceptions, and attitudes, physical
or psychological symptoms.
For example, a comparative study on the
health problems among rural and urban
older people from district Mehsana,
Gujarat.
 5. Evaluative Research

Seeks to assess or judge in some way

providing information about something
other than might be gleaned in mere
observation or investigation of
relationships.
For example, where a test of children in
school is used to assess the effectiveness
of teaching or the deployment of a
curriculum.
 Evaluation Research

Is conducted to elicit useful feedback

from a variety of respondents from
various fields to aid in decision making
or policy formulation.
There are various types of evaluation
depending on the purpose of the
study. Formative and summative
evaluation types are most commonly
used in research.
 Formative Research

Is used to determine the quality of

implementation of a project, the
efficiency and effectiveness of a
program, assessment of organizational
processes like procedure, policies,
guidelines, human resource
development and the like.
 6. Methodological

In this approach, the implementation

of a variety of methodologies forms a
critical part of achieving the goal of
developing a scale-matched
approach, where data from different
disciplines can be integrated.