Introduction to Quantitative

Methods
Adjunct Professor Jim Watters
Main Approaches

• 1. Survey and Comparative – What is?

• 2. Correlational - Relationships

• 3. Experimental - Causal

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 Research Problem

One possible contributing factor to the upsurge in the use of qualitative

methodologies could lie in the reluctance of researchers to use quantitative
methods because of statistics anxiety and availability of resources to conduct
statistical analyses.

RQ. 1 What is the level of statistics anxiety among graduate research students?

RQ. 2 What contributes to the reluctance to use data to inform teaching?

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 Instrument

If people are consistent in their response to these questions then the

Cronbach Alpha measure is between 0.7 and 1.0. This measures the reliability of the scale.

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Types of Data

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Terminology

• Variable:
• Attitudes to statistics. [ordinal data]
• (In the population it is the parameter, in the sample it is the statistic)

• Attitude to the use of data

• Gender [nominal data]

• Age [continuous ratio data]
• Educational sector [nominal data]

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 Populations
A population in statistics and quantitative research is a collection of

entities that we wish to draw some inferences about:

• All boys in the school,

• All grade five students in Queensland,

• All female primary teachers with more than 10 years teaching experience who have

red hair and currently teach in government schools in Australia,

• Research students enrolled in a graduate research methods masters course at QUT,

• Research students enrolled in a graduate research methods masters course at an

Australian University.
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 Attitudes
If we measured attitude to statistics we would probably get a distribution of
responses. Each measurement would be represented by a certain
frequency. That is, those who are very positive to statistics are few and far
between (>2), and those who loathe maths are also few and far between (>
-2).

Depending on the scale used to measure attitude most would fall

somewhere in the middle if the distribution is “normal”.

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 Sampling
• If we were interested in this problem of attitude to statistics and
wanting to document the level it would be costly and difficult to do
if the population was all red haired primary teachers in Australia.

• So we sample a smaller group.

• Sampling is the process of selecting units (e.g., people, students,

organisms) from a population of interest so that by studying the
sample we may fairly generalise our results back to the population
from which they were chosen.

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Sampling from a Population

Population

Sample 1
Sample 2

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Null hypothesis: Back to the research
question

• What would the research hypothesis be?

• What would the null hypothesis look like for the problem
articulated in slide 3?

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Experiments

• Purpose is to establish causal relationships.

• Pathological anxiety and stress can be managed by relaxation techniques.
• Student engagement depends on the level of challenge of the lessons.
• Learning mathematics is enhanced by background classical music.

• Assumption:
• Two or more groups are subject to a treatment and the researcher is trying
to argue that the treatment causes a change.
• Participants are randomly distributed
• Valid measures are available for pre and post tests
• All confounding variables are controlled
• The treatment is faithful

• COWS MOO SOFTLY

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Example

• A researcher is interested in whether a new teaching program in English

incorporating differentiation practices impacts on student sense of
engagement.
• 1. 25 female and 25 male Year 7 students were randomly assigned to two classes.
• 2. Over two terms, the researcher taught the set curriculum using the normal
approach adopted by the school system and a differentiated approach.
• 3. Students were reassessed on a Student Experience Questionnaire (SEQ) at the
beginning and end of the year.
• 4. Change in SEQ scores for each class were compared (t test)

• What may be challenges for the researcher at each step in this scenario?

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Quasi-experimental
• When any assumption of an experimental design is broken
the study is weakened but not totally invalidated.

• In education it is very difficult to do experiments so quasi-

experimental designs are more common.

• A fundamental requirement for true experiments is random

distribution of participants.

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