Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods is a student-friendly introduction to quantitative research methods and basic statistics. It uses a detective theme throughout the text to show how quantitative methods have been used to solve real-life problems. The book focuses on principles and techniques that are appropriate to introductory level courses in media, psychology and sociology. Examples and illustrations are drawn from historical and contemporary research in the social sciences. The original CD-ROM accompanying the book and its content are no longer available.
Quantitative and Statistical Research Methods This user-friendly textbook teaches students to understand and apply procedural steps in completing quantitative studies. It explains statistics while progressing through the steps of the hypothesis-testing process from hypothesis to results. The research problems used in the book reflect statistical applications related to interesting and important topics. In addition, the book provides a Research Analysis and Interpretation Guide to help students analyze research articles. Designed as a hands-on resource, each chapter covers a single research problem and offers directions for implementing the research method from start to finish. Readers will learn how to: Pinpoint research questions and hypotheses Identify, classify, and operationally define the study variables Choose appropriate research designs Conduct power analysis Select an appropriate statistic for the problem Use a data set Conduct data screening and analyses using SPSS Interpret the statistics Write the results related to the problem Quantitative and Statistical Research Methods allows students to immediately, independently, and successfully apply quantitative methods to their own research projects.
For more than 40 years, SAGE has been one of the leading international publishers of works on quantitative research methods in the social sciences. This new collection provides readers with a representative sample of the best articles in quantitative methods that have appeared in SAGE journals as chosen by W. Paul Vogt, editor of other successful major reference collections such as Selecting Research Methods (2008) and Data Collection (2010). The volumes and articles are organized by theme rather than by discipline. Although there are some discipline-specific methods, most often quantitative research methods cut across disciplinary boundaries. Volume One: Fundamental Issues in Quantitative Research Volume Two: Measurement for Causal and Statistical Inference Volume Three: Alternatives to Hypothesis Testing Volume Four: Complex Designs for a Complex World
This concise text discusses a wide range of quantitative research methods, including advanced techniques such as logic regression, multilevel modeling, and structural equation modeling. Because the text emphasizes concepts rather than mathematics and computation formulas, it is accessible to a wide range of users of research. Professional practitioners in areas such education, business, social work, and psychology can gain an understanding of research methods sufficient to base their work on advanced research in their fields. The text discusses the quantitative designs and analytic techniques most needed by students in the social sciences and in applied disciplines such as education, social work, and business. It teaches what the various methods mean, when to use them, and how to interpret their results. Since it emphasizes general understanding rather than mathematical foundations, students are able to review a broad range of methods in a comparatively short space.
This textbook is an advanced introduction to quantitative methods for students in communication and allied social science disciplines that focuses on why and how to conduct research that contributes to social justice. Today’s researchers are inspired by the potential for scholarship to make a difference for society, to push toward more just and equitable ends, and to engage in dialogue with members of the public so that they can make decisions about how to navigate the social, cultural, and political world equipped with accurate, fair, and up-to-date knowledge. This book illustrates the mechanics and the meaning behind quantitative research methods by illustrating each step in the research design process with research addressing questions of social justice. It provides practical guidance for researchers who wish to engage in the transformation of structures, practices, and understandings in society through community and civic engagement and policy formation. It contains step-by-step guidance in quantitative methods—from conceptualization through all the stages of execution of a study, including providing a detailed guide for statistical analysis—and demonstrates how researchers can engage with social justice issues in systematic, rigorous, ethical, and meaningful ways. This text serves as a core or supplementary textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in research methods for communication and social sciences and fills a gap for a methods text that is responsive to the desire of scholars to conduct socially impactful research.
Quantitative methodology is a highly specialized field, and as with any highly specialized field, working through idiosyncratic language can be very difficult made even more so when concepts are conveyed in the language of mathematics and statistics. The Sage Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences was conceived as a way of introducing applied statisticians, empirical researchers, and graduate students to the broad array of state-of-the-art quantitative methodologies in the social sciences. The contributing authors of the Handbook were asked to write about their areas of expertise in a way that would convey to the reader the utility of their respective methodologies. Relevance to real-world problems in the social sciences is an essential ingredient of each chapter. The Handbook consists of six sections comprising twenty-five chapters, from topics in scaling and measurement, to advances in statistical modelling methodologies, and finally to broad philosophical themes that transcend many of the quantitative methodologies covered in this handbook.
Quantitative Methodologies using Multi-Methods is a multifaceted book written to help researchers. It is a user-friendly introduction to the popular methods of data mining and data analysis. The book avoids getting involved into details that are more suitable for more advanced users; it is written for readers who have, at most, a surface-level knowledge of the methods presented in the book. The book also serves as an introductory guide to the subject of complementarity of the tools and techniques of data analysis. It shows how methods could be used in synergy to offer insights into the issues that could not be dissected by any single method alone. This text can also be used as a set of templates, where, given a set of research questions, the investigator could identify a set of methodological modules for answering the research questions of interest. This is not entirely unlike the relationship between the analysis and design phases of the systems development life cycle—where the What of the analysis phase has to be translated into the How of the design phase. The book can guide the identification of modules (the How) that are suitable for answering research questions (the What). It can aid in transitioning a conceptual domain of the research questions into a scaffolding of data analytic and data mining methods. The book is also a guide to exploring what data under investigation holds. For example, an investigator may use the methodological modules presented in this book to generate a set of preliminary questions which, after a careful consideration and a requisite culling, could be formulated into a set of questions consistent within a selected theory or a framework. Finally, the book can be used as a generator of new research questions. Applying every method in each of the book’s modules opens a new dimension ripe with follow-up questions such as, Why is this so? The answers to this question may provide new insight and lead to the development of a new theory.
This accessible and authoritative introduction is essential for education students and researchers needing to use quantitative methods for the first time. Using datasets from real-life educational research and avoiding the use of mathematical formulae, the author guides students through the essential techniques that they will need to know, explaining each procedure using the latest version of SPSS. The datasets can also be downloaded from the book′s website, enabling students to practice the techniques for themselves. This revised and updated second edition now also includes more advanced methods such as log linear analysis, logistic regression, and canonical correlation. Written specifically for those with no prior experience of quantitative research, this book is ideal for education students and researchers in this field.
In most planning practice and research, planners work with quantitative data. By summarizing, analyzing, and presenting data, planners create stories and narratives that explain various planning issues. Particularly, in the era of big data and data mining, there is a stronger demand in planning practice and research to increase capacity for data-driven storytelling. Basic Quantitative Research Methods for Urban Planners provides readers with comprehensive knowledge and hands-on techniques for a variety of quantitative research studies, from descriptive statistics to commonly used inferential statistics. It covers statistical methods from chi-square through logistic regression and also quasi-experimental studies. At the same time, the book provides fundamental knowledge about research in general, such as planning data sources and uses, conceptual frameworks, and technical writing. The book presents relatively complex material in the simplest and clearest way possible, and through the use of real world planning examples, makes the theoretical and abstract content of each chapter as tangible as possible. It will be invaluable to students and novice researchers from planning programs, intermediate researchers who want to branch out methodologically, practicing planners who need to conduct basic analyses with planning data, and anyone who consumes the research of others and needs to judge its validity and reliability.
The contributors to Best Practices in Quantitative Methods envision quantitative methods in the 21st century, identify the best practices, and, where possible, demonstrate the superiority of their recommendations empirically. Editor Jason W. Osborne designed this book with the goal of providing readers with the most effective, evidence-based, modern quantitative methods and quantitative data analysis across the social and behavioral sciences. The text is divided into five main sections covering select best practices in Measurement, Research Design, Basics of Data Analysis, Quantitative Methods, and Advanced Quantitative Methods. Each chapter contains a current and expansive review of the literature, a case for best practices in terms of method, outcomes, inferences, etc., and broad-ranging examples along with any empirical evidence to show why certain techniques are better. Key Features: Describes important implicit knowledge to readers: The chapters in this volume explain the important details of seemingly mundane aspects of quantitative research, making them accessible to readers and demonstrating why it is important to pay attention to these details. Compares and contrasts analytic techniques: The book examines instances where there are multiple options for doing things, and make recommendations as to what is the "best" choice—or choices, as what is best often depends on the circumstances. Offers new procedures to update and explicate traditional techniques: The featured scholars present and explain new options for data analysis, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the new procedures in depth, describing how to perform them, and demonstrating their use. Intended Audience: Representing the vanguard of research methods for the 21st century, this book is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers who want a comprehensive, authoritative resource for practical and sound advice from leading experts in quantitative methods.
