Quantitative research facts for kids

Quantitative research is a way to study things by collecting and analyzing numbers. It uses a logical approach to test ideas and theories. This type of research is based on observing facts and using scientific methods.

Quantitative research is used in many science fields, like natural sciences, social sciences, and more. It helps us objectively study things we can see and measure to understand how they are connected. Researchers use different ways to count and measure data. This shows how widely used this research method is across different school subjects.

There are times when quantitative research might not be the best way to find answers:

• When you want to explore very deep or complicated topics.
• When you are studying personal feelings and opinions.
• When you are just starting to explore a topic and don't have clear ideas yet.
• When you are looking into sensitive or private subjects.

The main goal of quantitative research is to create and use math models, scientific theories, and educated guesses (hypotheses) about different things. Measuring is very important in this research. It connects what we observe in the real world to math expressions of how things relate to each other.

Quantitative data is any information that comes in numbers, like statistics or percentages. Researchers use statistics to analyze this data. They hope the numbers will give a fair result that can apply to a larger group of people. On the other hand, Qualitative research looks deeply into specific experiences. It aims to describe and explore meaning using text, stories, or pictures. It finds themes unique to the people being studied.

Quantitative research is widely used in subjects like psychology, economics, and sociology. It is also used in marketing, community health, and political science. It is less common in anthropology and history. Research in math-based sciences, like physics, is also "quantitative." However, the meaning of the term is a bit different in that context. In social sciences, it refers to methods that came from scientific ways of thinking and the history of statistics. It is different from qualitative research methods.

Qualitative research gives information only about the specific cases studied. Any bigger conclusions are just ideas or guesses. Quantitative methods can then be used to check which of these ideas are true. A study of many articles in top American sociology journals found that about two-thirds of them used quantitative methods.

What is Quantitative Research?

Quantitative research is usually linked to ideas from the scientific method. This method can include:

• Creating models, theories, and educated guesses (hypotheses).
• Developing tools and ways to measure things.
• Controlling experiments and changing specific factors (variables).
• Collecting real-world data.
• Building models and analyzing the data.

Quantitative research is often compared to qualitative research. Qualitative research focuses more on finding hidden meanings and patterns. It looks at types of things and groups them without using math models. For example, in social sciences, qualitative research helps us understand why people say or do certain things.

Even though people often see quantitative and qualitative research as separate, they can work together. For instance, a lot of qualitative work is often needed before useful measurements can be made in physical sciences. Qualitative research is often used to get a general idea of something. It helps form theories that can then be tested using more quantitative research.

Modern quantitative methods have their roots in the ideas of Auguste Comte. He believed in using the scientific method through observation. This was to test ideas that explain and predict what, where, why, how, and when things happen. Scholars like Comte thought that only scientific methods could help us understand human behavior.

Quantitative methods have some limits. These studies do not always explain why people respond the way they do. They often do not reach groups of people who are not well represented. Also, they can take a very long time to collect all the data.

Using Statistics in Research

Statistics is the most common type of math used in quantitative research. It is used in many fields like economics, social sciences, and biology. Quantitative research that uses statistics starts by collecting data based on a hypothesis or theory. Usually, a large amount of data is gathered. This data needs to be checked, confirmed, and recorded before it can be analyzed. Computer programs like SPSS and R are often used for this.

Researchers study cause-and-effect relationships by changing factors that might affect what they are interested in. They also control other factors that could influence the results. For example, in health, researchers might measure how diet affects weight loss. They would also control other important factors like exercise.

Surveys that use numbers are common in the media. For example, they might report the percentage of people who support a certain idea. In these surveys, people are asked a set of structured questions. Their answers are then counted and organized. In climate science, researchers collect and compare numbers like temperature or the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

It's important to remember that just because two things are related (correlated) does not mean one causes the other. There might be other hidden factors at play. However, some researchers suggest that many correlations can point to a degree of cause and effect.

Measuring in Quantitative Research

The role of measurement in quantitative research can be seen in different ways. Sometimes, measurement is just a way to put observations into numbers. This helps to study cause-and-effect relationships. However, measurement can often play a more important role.

For example, sometimes the results from quantitative data can seem strange. This is because accepting a theory based on these results might seem like a natural event. When measurements do not match a theory, they might just give numbers. But these numbers can show exactly how much the results differ from the theory. This difference is often enough to start a new investigation.

In social sciences, researchers often use math models to measure social and psychological traits. This field is called Psychometrics. It is very important for much of the quantitative research done in social sciences.

Quantitative research might use "proxies." These are stand-ins for other things that cannot be measured directly. For example, the width of tree rings is a good proxy for past environmental conditions. This includes how warm growing seasons were or how much rain fell. Scientists cannot directly measure past temperatures. But tree-ring width and other climate proxies have been used to create a record of average temperatures. This record goes back to the year 1000 A.D.

Working with Qualitative Methods

In most physical and biological sciences, using either quantitative or qualitative methods is normal. Each is used when it makes sense. In the social sciences, especially in sociology and psychology, choosing one method over the other can sometimes cause arguments. However, throughout the history of social science, most researchers have combined both methods.

Qualitative methods can help us understand the meaning behind the results from quantitative methods. Using quantitative methods, we can give clear and testable forms to qualitative ideas. This way of combining quantitative and qualitative data collection is often called mixed-methods research.

Examples of Quantitative Research

• Research that shows the percentage of all the elements that make up Earth's atmosphere.
• A survey that finds the average patient waits two hours in a doctor's waiting room.
• An experiment where one group gets two aspirin tablets a day and another group gets two placebo tablets. Each person is randomly put into one of the groups. The numbers, like "two tablets," "percent of elements," and "two hours," make these situations and results quantitative.
• In economics, quantitative research is used to study businesses. It looks at what factors lead to different company structures. It also examines how companies relate to workers, money (capital), and product markets.

See also

In Spanish: Investigación cuantitativa para niños