Evaluating the Usefulness of Quantitative Methods in Sociological Research
Sociology develops, adopts, and adapts a wide variety of methods for understanding the social world.
A quantitative approach is associated with the collection of facts, usually statistical in form, favoured by positivist sociologists. The quantitative approach studies the relationships between different groups of facts to find correlations or the ultimate goal, cause-and-effect relationships. The quantitative approach often results in patterns becoming translated into generalisations about the behaviour and attitudes of wider society.
Quantitative research is generally done using scientific methods, which includes the following steps: developing models, theories, and hypotheses of what the researcher expects to find, developing instruments and methods for measuring the data, experimental control and manipulation of variables, collecting the data, modeling and analyzing the data. and then evaluating the results.
Quantitative methods can be questionnaires or interviews with closed-ended questions, statistics, the use of secondary data and experiments (with a control group and an experimental group).
Questionnaires constitute a quantitative approach that is associated with research high in reliability. They may also be viewed as high in reliability because they are standardised in the sense that everyone is asked the same questions and this contributes to their reliability as a method.
Questionnaires are the method preferred by positivists and researchers to collect data from a large and/or dispersed population. Questionnaires involve standardised questions written on a piece of paper (or in electronic form) for respondents to answer in their own writing (or by typing and clicking boxes).
Although questionnaires are generally viewed as high in reliability and low in validity, this does not negate the possibility that questionnaires can have high validity. Questionnaires that search for answers from issues that are clear-cut and straightforward
A quantitative approach is associated with the collection of facts, usually statistical in form, favoured by positivist sociologists. The quantitative approach studies the relationships between different groups of facts to find correlations or the ultimate goal, cause-and-effect relationships. The quantitative approach often results in patterns becoming translated into generalisations about the behaviour and attitudes of wider society.
Quantitative research is generally done using scientific methods, which includes the following steps: developing models, theories, and hypotheses of what the researcher expects to find, developing instruments and methods for measuring the data, experimental control and manipulation of variables, collecting the data, modeling and analyzing the data. and then evaluating the results.
Quantitative methods can be questionnaires or interviews with closed-ended questions, statistics, the use of secondary data and experiments (with a control group and an experimental group).
Questionnaires constitute a quantitative approach that is associated with research high in reliability. They may also be viewed as high in reliability because they are standardised in the sense that everyone is asked the same questions and this contributes to their reliability as a method.
Questionnaires are the method preferred by positivists and researchers to collect data from a large and/or dispersed population. Questionnaires involve standardised questions written on a piece of paper (or in electronic form) for respondents to answer in their own writing (or by typing and clicking boxes).
Although questionnaires are generally viewed as high in reliability and low in validity, this does not negate the possibility that questionnaires can have high validity. Questionnaires that search for answers from issues that are clear-cut and straightforward