Theme 4: Quantitative research

Theme 4: Quantitative research

Abstract of the paper I’ve read:

The paper “Information, expression, participation” examines how involvement in user-generated content relates to democratic engagement among young people. Previous research implies that there is link between UGC on the Internet and democratic engagement. However, previous research also implies a view 0f UGC involvement as the processing or political information. Analysis of survey data from Swedish adolescents in the age range of 13-17 indicates that UGC involvement predicts offline as well as online political participation. The findings are compatible with recent theories suggesting that the expressive, preformative and collaborative features of UGC involvement can promote political participation.(1)

The data used in the paper were collected during the spring semester of 2010 from two segments of school students (age 13-14 and 16-17) in the Swedish city Örebro, a total of 1812 students participated. The quantitative method used in this paper is questionnaires with multiple-choice questions and text-box choices, which were filled out during school hours. The questionnaires had two themes, “UGC involvement and informational media use” and “Political knowledge and participation” which were compared and evaluated.

The benefits of this method are that it provides precise quantitative data of a city which is similar to the national average on perceived relevant variables. The method is also convenient when studying large numbers of people. Furthermore it is easy to test and answer the question with the method.

The limitations of this method are that information about the subject might be too abstract and general for any direct applications and might ignore underlying causes and realities.

Reading this paper I learned that the geographic factor of the quantitative method might be of importance if the purpose is to represent a large group of people.

I think that the main methodological problem of the study is that focusing on hypothesis testing rather than hypothesis generation does not really contribute to any new knowledge within the area. The researchers might miss out on why this phenomenon is occurring when investigating what is occurring.

Research methods

The two categories of research methods: qualitative and quantitative catch different aspects of research situations. Quantitative methods tries to explain phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods, statistics in particular(2). In contrast, a qualitative method is designed to capture human elements of a research question such as how individuals see and experience the world. A qualitative approach to a given topic are generally focused on thoughts, feelings and meaning.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

Benefits:

• ·      Useful and less time consuming when studying large numbers of people.
• ·      Easy to test and validate existing theories.
• ·      Provides precise and quantitative data 

Limitations:

• ·      Kind of inflexible instrument since it’s hard to modify the chosen quantitative method once it’s set in motion.
• ·      Self-reported information might be inaccurate or incomplete.
• ·      The relations produced through a quantitative method might ignore underlying causes and/or realities.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

Benefits:

• ·      Uncovering information about individual’s thoughts and experiences. Provides individual case information
• ·      Useful when describing complex phenomenons. 

Limitations:

• ·      Hard to make assumptions or generalizations beyond the selected group of participants.
• ·      Time consuming.
• ·      Difficult to make quantitative predictions.
• ·      Harder to analyze than quantitative data.

References: 

1. http://nms.sagepub.com/content/14/6/1004.full.pdf

2. Aliaga and Gunderson (2000)

http://www.interaction.org/annex-1-strengths-and-weaknesses-quant-evaluation-approaches

http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/johnson/oh_master/Ch14/Tab14-01.pdf