Quantitative Studies: Descriptive/Survey, Causal-Comparative, Correlational, Experimental

Purpose

Descriptive/Survey
To describe current conditions

Examples

What are the attitudes of parents,

students, and teachers to an extended
school year?
To what extent are elementary
teachers using math manipulatives?

Characteristics

Use of large samples

Use of tests, questionnaires, and
surveys
Focused on information related to
preferences, attitudes, practices,
concerns, or interests
Statistical analysis of numerical data

Potential
Problems

Instrument development
Low response rates
Honest responses from subjects

Causal-Comparative
To explore relationships among
variables that cannot be actively
manipulated or controlled by the
researcher
What is the effect of part-time
employment on the achievement of
high school students?
What characteristics differentiate
students who dropout from those who
do not?
What are the effects of smoking on
health?
Selection of subjects from at least two
groups in which the cause (i.e., the
independent variable) has already
occurred
Statistical comparisons of the effect
(i.e., the dependent variable) using at
least two groups
Inferring cause and effect
relationships

Correlational
To ascertain the extent to which two
or more variables are statistically
related

Experiment
To establish cause and effect
relationships between variables

What is the relationship between ACT

scores and freshmen grades?
Do significant relationships exist
between the types of activities used in
math classrooms and student
achievement?

Examine the effect of teaching with a

1) co-operative groups strategy or 2)
traditional lecture approach on
students achievement
Examine the effect of teaching with
manipulatives or a traditional
algorithm approach on the test scores
of algebra students
Stringent procedures for selecting
subjects and assigning them to groups
Manipulation of the causal variable
Control of extraneous variables
Statistical analysis of numerical data

Measurement with a correlation

coefficient
One group of subjects measured on
two variables
Use of instruments to measure
variables
Focused on the direction and nature of
the relationship
Instrument development
Inability of researcher to adequately
Inferring cause and effect
control extraneous variables
relationships
Use of complicated research designs
Complex statistical analyses of data

Qualitative Studies: Biography, Phenomenology, Grounded Theory, Ethnography, Case Study, (Hybrid of these)
Type of Study
(keyword)
Purpose

Biography/Historical
(one person/(event)
To explore the life of one
individual.
To gain insight into past events,
issues, of personalities to better
understand the current situation

Phenomenology
(Meaning)
To understand what an
experience or phenomenon or
behavior means to a sample
of people and how they
construct those meanings.

Examples

A study of Abraham Lincolns

life.
Current parochial school
policies can be better
understood with knowledge of
the role these schools have
played in the education of
students in the community for
the last fifty years

A description of the caring

interaction between a nurse
and his or her patient (i.e.,
What is essential for the
experience to be described by
the client as being a caring
interaction?)

Characteristics

Potential
Problems

Grounded Theory
(Theory/Model)
To develop a theory or
theoretical model where none
exists in the literature relative
to the sample.

Ethnography
(Culture/Group)
To describe and interpret a
cultural or social group of
people to another culture or
group.

What theories underlie the

school change efforts of
teachers in a parochial
elementary school?
What underlying theory
explains teachers changing
from traditional assessment
beliefs and practices to
alternative, performancebased assessment beliefs and
practices?
Focus on specific individuals,
Describes the lived
Respect for participants
social issues, events, or policies experiences for several
beliefs and views
Documents and artifacts are the individuals about a concept or Qualitative data collection
primary sources of data, but
phenomenon.
using analytic strategies
interviews and observations can Search for meaning of an
In-depth, structured
also be used
experience.
(saturation) interviews are
Data is already available and is Long, open-ended interviews built around categories that
complied, presented, and
with up to 10 people who
define the issue and
interpreted
shared the experience
conducted with 20-30 people
Data is examined carefully for (questionnaires are ok if you (questionnaires ok if you
authenticity and truthfulness
must)
must)
Ask three things:
Inductively reasoned
1. What happened?
synthesis of data through the
2. What does it mean?
use of constant comparison
3. How did you come to
analysis
that conclusion?
Conceptual nature of the
process
Authenticity
Participants selectionneed Researcher bias
Truthfulness
to have experienced the
Poor data collection strategies
Reliance on secondary sources phenomenon
Difficulty analyzing data
Values of researcher can affect May be hard to
interpretation
interpret/analyze/
summarize/classify the
essence of the experience.

What is the nature of the

problems a teacher
encounters when he begins
using a constructivist
approach to instruction after
having taught for ten years
using a very traditional
approach?

Case Study
(Big Picture/System)
To develop and in-depth
analysis of a single case
(organization, family, event,
etc.) or multiple cases,
wherein all of the possible
internal and external
relationships are considered.
Campus reaction to a gunman
incident in which a student
attempted to fire a gun at his
classmates.

The study is conducted in the

natural setting for a lengthy
period of time
Emerging research design
Participants are observed in
naturally occurring activities
Researchers develops trust
with participants
Cyclical nature of data
collection and analysis
Observation and interviews
are the dominate data
collection strategies
Inductive nature of the data
analysis

The case is studied within its

setting and described this way
Gain confidence and trust of
participants
Data collection is extensive
and collected from multiple
sourcesdocuments, archival
records, interviews,
observations, physical
artifacts, questionnaires
Data are themed, tell a story

Insufficient time spent in the

field
Poor data collection efforts or
insufficient data collected
Poor data analysis
Researcher bias

Insufficient time spent in the

field
Poor data collection efforts or
insufficient data collected
Poor data analysis
Researcher bias