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My Quantitative Research Question
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- General Statement of Hypothesis:
- Video games foster learning.
- Specific Instance:
- Does exploration of societal structures through playing Rise of Nations [http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/]) lead to a deeper understanding of war and nation-building?
- Now the Quantitative version:
- How much better do learners perform on a test of CANADIAN HISTORY 20 Content Item #4. Nation building 1867–1896 after exploration of related issues through playing Rise of Nations [http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/]).
- This would involve a control group who does not receive the 'enrichment', and pre- and post-tests of both groups. If we wanted to study retention, we could do subsequent tests, say, 1 week, one month, and 6 months later.
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Notes
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It seems to me that the scope of questions that can be asked and answered using quantitative methods tends to be narrower. We can ask specific questions, like "How much better do kids do on standardized tests when they receive individual tutoring?" but not questions like, "What kinds of methods foster deeper learning?"
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- Qualitative Research is Non-Numerical
- "Quality of data"
- - observations
- - interviews
- - focus groups
- - videotape
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- a) Basic Characteristics:
- - do not state a hypothesis prior to data collection
- - processes; methods and strategies evolve inductively, in an on-going manner
- - context is neither manipulated nor seen as controllable
- - use of small, intimate groups
- - time of study is also intense (each day, all day, every Tuesday) due to methods used and close association of researcher with subjects
- - use of pattern analysis through organization, categorization, synthesis, and connections
- - narrative and descriptive
- - understanding "the world" of subjects or particpants is key
- - richness of situation
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- b) Basic Assumptions of QL (Ideology)
- - the world is neother stable, coherent, nor uniform or predictable
- - meaningful is situational, not universal
- - perspective, context, and personal factors are significant
- - for people working with people this seems to hold
- - we're not all the same
- - this research is exploratory
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- The scientific method does not take into account what cannot be directly observed or measured.
- In Qualitative Reasearch: this data is valuable
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- What cannot be observed must be obtained through interaction:
- - perspectives
- - understandings
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- NOTE: while the two methods are quite distinct, they are not exclusive.
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EDER 603.02
Quantitative Research Methods
