Chapter-5

COLLECTING QUANTITATIVE DATA

Firstly, We Have Five Steps:
1. Identify Participant Selection for a Study.
2. Identify Required Permissions for the Study.
3. What Information Will Be Collected?
4. Locate, select, and evaluate instruments for data collection, and describe
procedures for administering quantitative data collection.
5. Describe Procedures for Administering.

Identify How to Select Participants for a Study

In this step we need to Identify the people and places you plan to study. This
involves determining whether you will study individuals or entire organizations or some
Combination. And you need to decide what type of people or organizations you will
actually study and how many you will need for your research.

Identify Your Unit of Analysis

In this stage, you must decide at what level the data needs to be gathered. This level
is referred to as the unit of analysis this decision depends on the questions or
hypotheses.

Specify the Population and Sample

You Need to Consider What Individuals Or. Schools You Will Study. We Have:

▪ Representative: selection of individuals from a sample of a population.

▪ A population: a group of individuals who have the same characteristic.
▪ A target population: is a group of individuals with some common defining
characteristic that the researcher can identify and study.

Probabilistic and No Probabilistic Sampling

Researchers decide which type of sampling to use in their study based on such
factors as the amount of rigor they seek for their studies, the characteristics of the target
population, and the availability of participants. A sample is a subgroup of the target
population that the researcher plans to study for generalizing about the target
population.

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How Many Ways of Sampling do we have?

Stratified sampling
Researchers divide the population on some specific characteristic and then, using
simple random sampling, sample from each subgroup of the population

Systematic Sampling
You choose every nth individual or site in the population until you reach your
desired sample size.

Probability sampling
The researcher selects individuals from the population who are representative of
that population.

Simple random sampling

Researcher selects participants for the sample so that any individual has an equal
probability of being selected from the population.

Convenience sampling
the researcher selects participants because they are willing and available to be
studied.

Snowball sampling
The researcher asks participants to identify others to become members of the sample.

Multistage cluster sampling

The researcher chooses a sample in two or more stages

Nonprobability
The researcher selects individuals because they are available, convenient, and
represent some characteristic the investigator seeks to study.

It Is Important to Determine the Size of The Sample you Will Need It

The larger the sample, the less the potential error is that the sample will be different
from the population. This difference between the sample estimate and the true
population score is called sampling error. Sample size formulas provide the means
for calculating the size of your sample based on several factors.

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What Permission Will You Need?
You need to obtain permissions from several individuals and groups before you
can gather data:
1. Institutions or organizations.
2. Specific sites.
3. A participant or group of participants.
4. Parents of participants.
5. The campus on which you conduct the research.

Permissions May Be Required From: Permissions are Necessary

Before you can enter a site and collect data. This approval usually comes from
leaders or persons of authority in organizations. Gaining permissions from
organizational personnel requires contacting them before the start of a study.

The best way to seek permission from the necessary individuals or

groups is to ask for it formally in a letter.
1. The purpose of the study
2. The time required of participants
3. How you will use the data or results
4. The specific activities you will conduct
5. The provisions you have made to protect the anonymity of study participants.
6. The amount of time you will be at the site collecting data

Obtain Informed Consent: It is important to protect the privacy and confidentiality of

individuals who participate in the study.

REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL: It is a committee made up of faculty members who

review and approve research so that the research protects the rights of the participants.

Process of obtaining approval from review broad

1. Start by finding out about the review process used by the institutional review
board on your campus.
2. Determine what information the review board needs about your project.
3. Develop an informed consent form for participants to sign before they participate
in the study. Submit a description of your proposed study to the institutional
review board.
4. Submit a description of your proposed study to the institutional review board.

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WHAT INFORMATION WILL YOU COLECT?
We have to follow these steps

A useful strategy is to make a list of the variables so that you can determine what
variables are operating in a study. To determine what data need to be collected you need
to identify clearly the variables in your study. This will include independent, dependent,
and control variables.

You can find definitions in published research studies on your topic. An

operational definition is the specification of how yau""will define and measure the
variable in your study.

Choose Types of data and Measures Identify types of data that will measure Your
variables. Researchers collect data on instruments

TYPES OF DATA ANG MEASURES

1. Performance Measures to assess an individual 's ability to perform on an

achievement test, intelligence test, aptitude test, interest inventory, or personality
assessment inventory.
2. Attitudinal Measures Measure feelings toward educational topics
3. Behavioral observations Collect data on ì specific behaviors through a checklist
4. Web-Based Electronic Data Collection The participant downloads a
questionnaire from the Internet, completes the questionnaire and sends it back to
the researcher.
5. Factual Information Factually for Consist of numeric individual data available in
public records

HOW To DECIDE WHAT TYPES TO CHOOSE.

1. What am I trying to learn about participants from my research questions and
hypotheses?
2. What information can you realistically collect?
3. How do the advantages of the data collection compare with its disadvantages?

Locate or Develop an Instrument

1. Develop one yourself.
2. Locate one and modify it.
3. Locate one and use it in its entirety.

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Modifying an instrument means locating an existing instrument, obtaining
permission to change it, and making changes in it to fit your requirements.

When we Search for an Instrument, we: Draw Projects. Apps Photos

Look in published journal articles.

Run an ERIC search. Examine guides to tests and instruments that are available
commercially.

Criterial for Choosing a Good Instrument Mockups Notes

Are Scores on Past Use of the Instrument Reliable and Valid?

Reliability
Types of Reliability Test-retest reliability Alternate forms reliability Alternate
forms and test-retest reliability. Interrater reliability -Internal consistency reliability
means that scores from an instrument are stable and consistent

Types of Reliability:

• Test-retest reliability Alternate forms reliability

• Twice at different time intervals.
• Each participant in the study completes the instrument twice-Each participant in
the study completes each instrument.
• Alternate forms and test-retest reliability each instrument administered once,
twice at different time intervals Each participant in the study completes each
instrument.
• Interrater reliability: Instrument administered once More than one individual
observes behavior of the participants.
• Internal consistency reliability -Instrument administered once each participant in
the study completes the instrument.

In Validity, we must employ these steps:

1. Identify, an instrument that you would like to use Gallery.

2. Look for evidence of validity by examining prior studies that have reported
scores and use of the instrument.
3. Look closely at the Purpose for which the instrument was used in these studies.
4. Look as well at how the researchers have interpreted) the scores in light of their
intended use
5. Evaluate whether the authors provide good evidence that links their interpretation
to their use.

We must CONSIDER:
▪ Evidence based on response processes
▪ Evidence based on test content
▪ Evidence based on internal structure
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 ▪ First the construct being measured and nature of the responses of the individuals
completing the instrument
▪ Evidence based on relations to other variables
▪ A large category, of evidence that relates to the traditional idea l of criterion-
related Validity.
▪ Evidence based on the consequences of testing
▪ Validity evidence can be organized to support both the intended and the
Unintended consequences of using an instrument.
▪ Evidence based on internal structure
▪ Conduct statistical Procedures to ‘determine the relationship among test item and
test parts.
▪ Evidence based on test content
▪ The test's content relates to what the test is intended to measure.

CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING A GOOD INSTRUMENT TO USE:

Do the Instrument's Data Recording Procedures Fit to the Research

Questions/Hypotheses? Are Adequate Scales of Measurement Used?

Scales of measurement are response options to questions that measure (or observe)
variables in categorical or continuous units.

SCALES
NOMINAL SCALES: ORDINAL SCALES PROVIDE RESPONSE OPTIONS
WHERE PARTICIPANTS CHECK

PROVIDE RESPONSE OPTIONS WHERE PARTICIPANTS CHECK ONE OR

MORE CATEGORIES THAT DESCRIBE THEIR TRAITS

INTERVAL/RATIO SCALES
INTERVAL SCALES ONE OR MORE CATEGORIES That attributes, OR
CHARACTERISTICS.

Ordinal SCALES
PROVIDE RESPONSE OPTIONS WHERE PARTICIPANTS RANK from best or
most important to worst or least important some trait. ATTRIBUTES, OR
CHARACTERISTICS.

Interval/ Ratio Scale provide continuous response options to questions with assumed
equal distance between options.

Combined Scale: In educational research, quantitative Investigators often use a

combination of categorical and continuous scales. of these interval scales provide the
most variation of responses and led them to stronger statistical analysis.

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Finally, We Must Describe Procedures for Administering Quantitative
Data Collection

Standardization REFERS TO:

Performance measures, attitudinal measures, and observations rely on instruments.

These instruments may consist of questionnaires that researchers mail to participants or

hand out individually to people, surveys often administered in person or over the
telephone, and observational checklists that researchers complete.

Quantitative investigators also use instruments when they conduct face-to face
interviews with individuals or for a group of individuals.

Ethical Issues

Data collection should be ethical and it should respect individuals and sites

Obtaining permission before starting to collect data is not only a part of the informed
consent process but is also an ethical practice.

THANK YOU