PRACTICAL RESEARCH 2

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Nature of Inquiry
and Research 1
U n i t
 INTRODUCTION

There are many things you want to know in this world. People, things, places,
events—their characteristics or qualities make you wonder continuously, frequently,
or intermittently. Marveling at them, you tend to immerse yourself in a situation
where you seem to be grappling with a problem or a puzzle. Questions after questions
on the many aspects of the object of your curiosity prod you to move, act, or do
something to find answers to your questions or to discover truths about your
inferences or speculations on such object. Behaving like an investigator, asking and
seeking answers to some questions about the thing you find puzzling indicates the
true nature of inquiry or research.
LESSON 1- Inquiry vs. Research: A Review
Intended Learning Outcomes
After this lesson, you should able to:
1. Relate an unfamiliar term with other terms to discover the meaning of such difficult term;
2. Explain the meaning of research in relation to inquiry;
3. Point out the similarities and differences of research and inquiry;
4. Distinguish lower-level questions from top-level questions to give stress to investigative
thinking;
5. Judge the applicability of inquiry or research to a given situation; and
6. Appraise the value of concepts learned about inquiry and research.
Activity 1
Based on your stock knowledge and on the words surrounding the middle
word provide a definition for each cluster.

study inspect

scrutinize

Probe peruse

investigate
haphazard
mixed
consider reflect

ponder

meditate contemplate
 random

unplanned illogic
disorderly
 Inquiry vs. Research

Inquiry- a term that is synonymous with the word “investigation”. When you
inquire or investigate, you tend to ask questions to probe or examine something.
You do this kind of examination through your HOTS or higher-order thinking
strategies of inferential, analytical, critical, creative and appreciative thinking to
discover more understandable or meaningful things beyond such object of your
inquiry. Thinking in this manner makes you ask open-ended questions to elicit
views, opinions, and beliefs of others in relation to your research.
 Inquiry vs. Research

Research- a scientific, experimental, or inductive manner of thinking.

Starting from particular to more complex ideas, you execute varied thinking
acts that range from lower-order to higher order thinking strategies reflected
by these research activities: identifying the topic problem, gathering data, and
drawing conclusions.
Methods of Research
To be a researcher is to be a scientist, who must think logically or systematically; your
research activities must follow a certain order, like doing inductive thinking that makes you
ponder on specific ideas first, then move to more complex concepts like conclusions or
generalizations or do the opposite of inductive thinking which is deductive thinking that lets
you start from forming generalizations to examining details about the subject matter. These
are not the only approaches, though, that you can adhere to in planning your research work.
Depending on your topic and purpose, you are free to choose from several approaches,
methods, and types of research you learned in your previous research subject, Practical
Research 1. (Gray 2011; Sharp 2012)
Inquiry vis-à-vis Research
One scholarly activity that greatly involves inquiry is research. Similar to inquiry that starts
from what you are ignorant about, research makes you learn something by means of a problem-
solving technique. Both inquiry and research encourage you to formulate questions to direct you to
the exact information you want to discover about the object of your curiosity. Your questions operate
like a scrutiny of a person’s attire to find out what are hidden between or among the compartments
or folded parts of his/her clothes. Although the core word for both inquiry and research is
investigation or questioning, they are not exactly the same in all aspects. Research includes more
complex acts of investigation than inquiry because the former follows a scientific procedure of
discovering truths or meanings about things in this world. (Goodwin 2014; Lapan 2012)
 WHOLE CLASS ACTIVITY

• Determine whether Inquiry or Research is applicable to the given

situations. Check the corresponding column of your answer.
Situation Inquiry Research
1. A person wants to know the
occupant of one condominium.

2. A student wants to know the

medicinal effects of guava
leaves.

3. Mr. Cruz wants to know the

technique to make his electric
fan function instantly.
 Situation Inquiry Research
4. Professor Gomez wants to
discover the impact of social
networking on his students’
learning abilities.

5. Aling Rosa wants to know the

reason behind the decrease of her
sales for the day.

6. A business man wants to find

out which between these two
marketing strategies: free tasting
and attractive packaging, could
increase daily sales.
 CONCEPT EXPLANATION

Comprehension Check Directions:

Explain your understanding of inquiry and research by answering the following questions.
1. Compare and contrast Inquiry and Research.
2. Which is easier to carry out: Inquiry or Research? Give reasons for your answer.
3. How can a researcher be a scientist?
4. What if you do things randomly in research, what will be the consequences?
5. Should you immediately concern yourself with data analysis prior to research
approach? Why? Why not?
6. Could Inquiry and Research go together? Explain your point.
7. What do you think of this line: Inquiry occurs completely with excessive familiarity
with the physical looks of an object?
8. Do these two words, Inquiry and Research, somehow indicate strength of character?
9. Have you had an application of Inquiry and Research in your day-to-day life?
Explain.
10. Name some institutions or organizations that often engage themselves in inquiry and
research. Describe their ways of doing it.
LOWER ORDER THINKING SKILLS – HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS

Creating
High order
thinking Evaluating
skills
Analyzing
Applying
Low order Understanding
thinking
skills
Remembering
Concept-Learning Assessment
Use percentage grade (50%-100%) to indicate the extent of your learning
about each of the following topics.

1. Differences and similarities between Inquiry and Research

2. Behavior of people practicing Inquiry and Research

3. Reasons behind people’s inquisitive attitudes

4. Research as an inductive thinking

5. Lower-order and higher order thinking strategies

LESSON 2: QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

What is Quantitative
Research?

 Expressions like numerical forms, objective thinking, statistical methods,

and measurement signal the existence of quantitative research. One word
that reflects the true nature of this type of research is numerical. This term,
is a descriptive word pertaining to or denoting a number or symbol to
express how many, how much, or what rank things are or have in this
world. Expressing meaning through numerals or a set of symbols indicates
specificity, particularly, or exactness of something.
Image Intensifier

Which between these two sets of statements is easier or quicker to understand?

Set A – Ninety five (95%) of the examinees passed the licensure exams.
Twenty pages of the book contain grammatically incorrect sentences.

Set B – A big number of examinees passed the licensure exams.

Several pages of the book contain grammatically incorrect sentences.
 Characteristics of Quantitative Research

• Quantitative research uses numbers and figures to denote a particular thing, this kind of research requires you
to focus your full attention on the object of your study.

• Tend to exclude your own thoughts and feelings about the subject or object. This is why quantitative research
is described as objective research in contrast to qualitative research that is subjective.

• Characterized by objectiveness, in which only the real or factual, not the emotional or cognitive existence of
the object matters greatly to the artist, quantitative research is analogous to scientific or experimental
thinking.

• Do not just identify problems but theorize, hypothesize, analyze, infer, and create as well.

• Quantitative research usually happens in hard sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine;
qualitative research, in soft sciences such as humanities, social sciences, education, and psychology, among
others.
 Kinds of Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is a broad spectrum that it can be classified into smaller and more
specific kinds: descriptive, correlational, ex post facto, quasi-experimental, and experimental.

Example: A research aims to know how

Descriptive design is used to describe a
particular phenomenon by observing it as it occurs
in nature. There is no experimental manipulation
and the researcher does not start with a
hypothesis. The goal of descriptive research is
only to describe the person or object of the study.
many hours SHS students spend in social
media.
The number of malnourished students who
failed in the achievement test.
The determination of the different kinds of
physical activities and how often high school
students do it during the quarantine period.”
Correlational design identifies the
Example: The relationship
relationship between variables. Data
between the amount of physical
is collected by observation since it
activity done and student
does not consider the cause and
academic achievement.
effect.
Ex post facto design is used to investigate a Example: How does the
possible relationship between previous events
parent’s academic
and present conditions. The term “Ex post
facto”, means after the fact, looks at the possible achievement affect the
causes of an already occurring phenomenon. children obesity?
Just like the first two, there is no experimental
manipulation in this design.
Quasi-experimental design is used to establish
the cause and effect relationship of variables.
Although it resembles the experimental design, Example: The effects of
the quasi-experimental has lesser validity due to unemployment on attitude
the absence of random selection and assignment towards following safety
of subjects. Here, the independent variable is protocol in ECQ declared
identified but not manipulated. The researcher areas.
 
does not modify pre-existing groups of subjects.
Experimental design like quasi-
experimental is used to establish the Example: A comparison
cause and effect relationship of two or of the effects of various
more variables. This design provides a blended learning to the
more conclusive result because it uses reading comprehension
random assignment of subjects and of elementary pupils.
experimental manipulations.  
Strengths of Quantitative Research
 
The following are the strengths of quantitative research.
 
1. Quantitative research can be replicated or repeated.
2. Findings are generalizable to the population.
3. Conclusive establishment of cause and effect
4. Numerical and quantifiable data can be used to predict outcomes
5. Fast and easy data analysis using statistical software.
6. Fast and easy data gathering
7. Very objective
8. Validity and reliability can be established
Weaknesses of Quantitative Research

The following are the disadvantages of quantitative research:

1. It lacks the necessary data to explore a problem or concept in depth.
2. It does not provide comprehensive explanation of human experiences.
3. Some information cannot be described by numerical data such as feelings, and
beliefs.
4. The research design is rigid and not very flexible.
5. The participants are limited to choose only from the given responses.
6. The respondents may tend to provide inaccurate responses.
7. A Large sample size makes data collection more costly.
Concept Explanation
Activity 1
Directions: Choose the letter of the correct word to complete 4. Some think of quantitative research as complex because of
the sentence. its use of ______________.

1. You tend to inflate something in a qualitative research a. hypotheses c. factual data

because of your _____________. b. numerical data d. theories

a. objective views c. personal traits 5. A quantitative research presents research findings in this
b. teacher’s influence d. mathematical skills manner:

2. This line, “The truth is out there.” is true for _____. a. Many prefer to study with textbooks.
b. Students find textbooks indispensable or necessary.
a. qualitative research c. all research designs c. Perhaps, 30% consider textbook unnecessary in their
b. quantitative research d. any research type studies.
d. Out of 100 college students, 90 find textbooks beneficial to
3. People inclined to doing a quantitative research wants to their studies.
discover truth in _____________.

a. an exact manner c. an indirect way

b. a careful way d. a personal way
LESSON 3: IMPORTANCE OF QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH ACROSS
FIELDS

 The value of quantitative research to man’s quest to discover the unknown and improve
underlying conditions is undeniable. Throughout history, quantitative research has paved the way to
finding meaningful solutions to difficulties. For instance, the development of vaccines to strengthen
our immunity against viruses causing highly communicable diseases like polio, influenza,
chickenpox, and measles to name a few, underwent thorough experimental trials. You bet,
scientists and medical experts all over the world today are working their best to fast track the
development, testing and release of the vaccine for the Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (Covid-19)
as the pandemic has critically affected the world economy, education, as well as physical and
emotional well-being of people.  
 The findings of the quantitative study can influence leaders and law-makers’ decisions for
crafting and implementing laws for the safety and welfare of the more significant majority. For
example, a community with high cases of Covid-19 positive patients is mandated by law to be
under Enhanced Community Quarantine where only the most essential businesses can operate. On
the other hand, cities with less or zero case will be under General Community Quarantine where
some businesses, public and private offices are already allowed to operate.
• Using quantitative design helps us determine and better understand relationships
between variables or phenomenon crucial to reducing the range of uncertainty
because the mathematics behind quantitative studies helps us make close estimates
of the outcome (dependent variable) from a given condition/s (independent variable).
Relationship between demand and supply, age and health, discipline and academic
achievement, practice and winning at sports, depression and suicidal rates are just a
few examples of real-life applications of correlation studies in the past that we still
apply today.
 
• Most inventions and innovations are products of quantitative studies. Before you can
enjoy the uses and features of a smart phone, it took years of research to establish
compliance to standards for interoperability, to find the most cost-effective raw
materials, identify the sleekest and sturdiest design, the fastest data saving and
processing power, and most marketable add-ons according to consumer needs.
Indeed, mankind will dwell in the darkness of ignorance if not for the people who
conducted their research before reading about it from books or manuals.
 The table below shows some of the contributions of quantitative research to other fields and their example .
Field Contribution/Application Example
Social Science  Effects of intervention to group behavior. The effects of pandemic on social
 Understanding cultural or racial conflicts. behavior and economic stability.
 Human satisfaction and stressors
Natural and Physical Sciences  Investigate the effectiveness of a product or Antidiabetic properties of common
treatment to illnesses. Philippine herbs.
 Finding or enhancing alternative energy sources.
 Advancement in material science.
Agriculture and Fisheries  Increase the yield of crops The effectiveness of organic and
 Prevention and cure for crops and livestock inorganic fertilizer to vegetable
diseases production.
 
Sports  Enhance athletic performance Diet and exercise techniques for
different kinds of sports.
Business  Device marketing strategies Effectiveness of Facebook ads on sales.
 Improve marketability
Arts and Design  Relationship between color and architectural The effects of music on learning and
space behavior.
 Multimedia use and adaptation for recreation,
business marketing and lifestyle changes.
Environmental Science  Causes and effects of climate change The environmental factors affecting
natural calamities
Directions: Search online, from a book or publication one particular quantitative study for
every field below and indicate its contribution to the development of knowledge to that field.
Field Title, Author/s, Yr published Contribution
Education The Better You Feel the Better You Learn: Do Warm Finds a way to improve learning
Colours and Rounded Shapes Enhance Learning through colors and shapes.
Outcome in Multimedia Learning? Munchow, H,  
Mengelkamp, C, Bannert, M. (2017)
Medicine    
 
 
 
Sports    
 
 
 
Food Industry    
 
 
Arts    
 
 
 
 That’s all for Today!
Thank you for listening and
participating.
Next Topic: Lesson 4- Variables in Quantitative Research