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Illustrates the importance of quantitative research across fields

CS_RS12-Ia-c-2
 MODULE 2 2
Importance of
Quantitative Research
across Fields

BEGIN
Researchers do research to find solutions, to almost everything, from problems to
solutions, improving or enhancing ways of doing things, providing a new hypothesis, or
simply to find answers to questions or solutions to problems in daily life. Research findings
have improved people’s lives, ways of doing things, businesses, laws, rules and
regulations, and others. Quantitative research, because of its emphasis on evidence,
rather than findings, has been extensively used in most areas of concern.
Research conducted with significant results were validated and brought positive
changes, improvement and addressed the existing problems in the society. As our society
undergoes industrialization, some aspects of society were compromised thus, the
emergence of new problems was faced by the following generation which calls for the
conduct of rigorous study and the conduct of research to address these things. Aside
from these, concerned people who are in the field of research and development and
education sectors in cooperation with the government continuously provide new
technology and develop new products to make life efficient through research.
In this module, you will learn the importance of research across the fields.

.
 give the importance of quantitative research across fields.
 recognize the contributions of quantitative research across disciplines
 appreciate the importance of quantitative research across different
fields of study.
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A. Study the pictures below. Identify which field of study of research each of the pictures
illustrates as well as its importance in the field.

1. Field: ___________________________ 2. Field: __________________________

Importance:________________________ Importance:________________________

3. Field: ____________________________ 4. Field: ___________________________

Importance:__________________________ Importance:_________________________

5. Field: ____________________________ 6. Field: ___________________________

Importance:__________________________ Importance:_________________________
__
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Quantitative Research across Disciplines

Research and Anthropology

Bernard (1994) as cited by Prieto et. al. (2017) says that there are five steps to
follow in conducting true experiments with people:

1. You need at least two groups, called the treatment group (or the intervention group or
the stimulus group) and the control group. One group gets the intervention (a new drug,
for example in treating Covid 19), and the other group (the control group) doesn’t).

2. Individuals must be randomly assigned, either to the intervention group or to the control
group to ensure that the groups are equivalent. Some individuals in a population may be
more religious, or wealthier, or less sickly, or more prejudiced than others, but random
assignment ensures that those traits are randomly distributed through the groups in an
experiment. The degree to which randomization ensures equivalence, however, depends
on the size of the groups created. With random assignment, two groups of 50 are more
equivalent than four groups of 25.

3. The groups are measured on one or more dependent variables (income, infant
mortality, attitude toward abortion, knowledge of curing techniques, or other things you
hope to change by the intervention); this is called the pretest.

4. The intervention (the independent variable) is introduced.

5. The dependent variables are measured again. This is the posttest.

Quantitative Research and Communication

Researchers are often interested in how an understanding of a particular

communication phenomenon might be generalized to a larger population. For example,
researchers can advance questions like “What effect do punitive behavioral control
statements have on a classroom? What communicative behaviors are used to respond
to co-workers displaying emotional stress? (Allen, Titsworth, Hunt, 2009 as cited by Prieto
et. al. 2017).
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Quantitative Research and Sports Medicine

A quantitative research done by the University of Eastern Finland investigated the

relationship between the mushrooming of fast food chains and obesity of children, as well
as the intervention needed to prevent children’s obesity from reaching serious
proportions.

The research studied 410 children, with ages ranging from six to eight years old
from Kuopio, Eastern Finland.

The researchers focused on the children’s physical activity and physical inactivity
and the concomitant impact on the children’s amount of adipose tissue (fat mass) and
endurance fitness. The study showed that children who did a strenuous exercise for 10
minutes daily had 26-30% less adipose tissue than their peers who were physically
inactive. It had also been found out that even light physical activity for the equivalent time
of passive sitting reduced the children’s adipose tissue by 13%. The study concluded that
physical activity affects effectively the children’s weight control. (Prieto et. al. 2017)

Quantitative Research and Medical Education

Quantitative research in medical education tends to be predominantly

observational research based on surveys or correlational studies.

Experimental research designs may enhance the quality of medical education.

Said designs test interventions like curriculum, teaching-learning process, or assessment
with an experimental group. Either a comparison or controlled group of learners may allow
researchers to overcome validity concerns and infer potential cause-effect
generalizations.

When designing their own or evaluating other researchers’ studies, researchers

must always keep in mind internal and external validity concerns.

The selection of a research design for any study should be within the parameters
of the research questions as stated in the problem statement or hypothesis. In quantitative
research, the findings will reflect the reliability and validity (psychometric characteristics
of the measured outcomes or dependent variables such as changes in knowledge, skill
or attitudes used to assess the effectiveness of medical education intervention or the
independent variable of interest. (Prieto et. al. 2017)

Quantitative Research and the Behavioral Sciences

Contemporary quantitative scholars are interested in two types of questions:

1. Questions of relationships and

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2. Questions of differences

Relationship questions tend to explore how one behavior exhibited by people is

related to other types of behavior. Examples are verbally aggressive behaviors related to
physical aggression-that is, when a person has a high level of verbally aggressive
behavior, does he or she tend to be physically aggressive? Are certain supervisor
communication skills related to the emotional experiences of employees?

Questions of difference explore how patterns of behavior or perceptions might

differ from one group or type of person to another: Do people with disabilities experience
emotional labor differently from those without disabilities? Do women perceive
talkativeness (or lack of it) differently from men? Do communication styles differ from one
culture to the next? (Allen, Titsworth, Hunt, 2009 as cited by Prieto, 2017).

When quantitative researchers explore questions of differences or questions of

relationships, they do so in an attempt to uncover certain patterns of behavior. If the
researcher discovers that a certain relationship exists in a sample that she or he has
drawn from the population, she/he is then in a position to draw generalizations about
patterns expected of human behavior.

Quantitative Research in Education and Psychology

Mertens (2005) as cited by Prieto (2017) says that the dominant paradigms that
guided early educational and psychological research were positivism and its successor,
post-positivism. Positivism is based on the rationalistic, empiricist philosophy that
originated with Aristotle, Francis Bacon, John Locke, August Comte, and Immanuel Kant.
The underlying assumptions of positivism include the belief that the social world can be
studied in the same way as the natural world, that there is a method for studying the social
world that is value-free, and that explanations of a causal nature can be provided.

The following table was done by Doren, Bullis, and Benz, 1996, as cited in Mertens,
2005 then by Prieto (2017), to illustrate this view of positivism:

Research Problem: Very little is known about the victimization experiences of

adolescents with disabilities, yet previous research has suggested that people with
mental retardation are vulnerable to economic, psychological, and physical abuse.

Research Question: What are the predictors of victimization for a sample of

adolescents with disabilities in transition from high school to adult life?

Method: Students with disabilities and their parents in two western states were
interviewed during the students’ last year in school and once again, when students
were 1 year out of school.
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Participants: Participants were children with disabilities who were identified by the
school as in their last year of high school or who had dropped out of high school
sometime during what would have been their last year (Sample size=422)

Instruments and Procedures: A fixed-response interview was conducted by

telephone with students and their parents by trained interviewers. Predictor variables
were selected based on previous research; these included gender, minority status,
serious emotional disturbance (SED), specific learning disability (SLD), dropout
status, family socioeconomic status, parent rating of academic skills, and a rating of
personal-social skills. The outcome variable of victimization was defined as
experiencing more than one of the following: being teased or bothered, having
something stolen from them, or being hit hard or beaten up.

Results: The following characteristics were associated with a greater likelihood of

being victimized during the first year out of school: prior victimization while still in
school in the previous year, being female, having low post school personal-social
achievement, and having both SED and an arrest record within 1 year of leaving
school.

Discussion: The greatest risk for victimization was for the group who had serious
emotional disturbance and low personal-social achievement. The authors recommend
increasing social skill training directed to this specific group in terms of appropriate
ways to behave in community settings where victimization could occur.

Quantitative Research and the Social Sciences

Quantitative approaches are typically associated with positivist perspectives in

social research. Hammersely (1993, as cited in Henn, Weinstein, Foard, 2006 and Prieto
et. al. 2017) provides a useful definition of this approach:

The term ‘quantitative method’ refers to the adoption of natural science

experiments as the model for scientific research, its key features being quantitative
measurement of the phenomena studied and systematic control of the theoretical
variables influencing those problems.

Thus, the logic of such research is to:

 Collect data using standardized approaches on a range of variables;

 Search for patterns of a causal relationship between these variables; and
 Test given theory by confirming or denying precise hypotheses.

The methods employed in this type of quantitative social research are most
typically the sample survey and the experiment, a method that is particularly popular in
psychological research.
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In the field of education, the teachers in higher education institutions are into
research. In response to the changing trends in education, teachers in basic education
are encouraged to conduct research to address problems in school in order to increase
the academic performance of the students and to cater to other needs of the students.
This is also done to manage the teaching institutions which includes governance, gender,
and development, inclusive education, teaching, learning, etc.

Through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

researchers, different machines were invented to make our work and our daily life efficient
and easy. New designs of infrastructures like buildings, bridges, and roads were made
stronger, more beautiful, and environmentally friendly. New materials and procedures
were also utilized to further strengthen to withstand calamities and disasters. Different
programs were made to facilitate faster transactions, manufacturing, and response during
disasters. Medical discoveries and improvements were made in the diagnosis,
treatments, and production of medicine to diseases which don’t have a cure in the past.

In order to increase the revenue and return of investments, the business sector
uses research to obtain higher profit but gives a quality of products and services. Through
research, analysis of the business and the market will be a basis on the proper time to
open a new business or a new branch in a certain location with a certain product or
service. Managers could also use research to determine the proper management styles
they need in order to run the company smoothly and to address the needs of the
employee and their clientele. Customer preferences and satisfaction could also be
determined through research so that business owners could adjust and develop products
and services which could match the customer’s taste and expectations.

In the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, research could be a venue to

understand the behaviors of society and on how to address the issues encountered such
as stress, child labor, bullying, etc.

Research is a way of understanding and solving problems in society in order to

make life efficient and to help people will live in harmony with one another. Development
and improvement in life are not possible without research.
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APPLY WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED

Directions: Given the following fields of research, indicate research that you would like to
conduct a study on based on your track/ strand. Fill out the information needed inside the
box below:

Fields
1 Anthropology
2 Sports
3 Medicine
4 Natural Sciences
5 Behavioral sciences
6 Social Sciences
7 Education and psychology
8. Arts and Design

Track:
Strand:
Field of research:
Description of the research that you want to conduct:

Importance of Research in the chosen field:

Congratulations on finishing the supplementary learning module! You have just

had an amazing learning journey and for sure, you will also do the same in the succeeding
modules.
Directions: Complete the statement below
I have learned that _____________________________________________.
_____________________________________________________________
I wish to ask my teacher about ____________________________________.
_____________________________________________________________.
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Directions: Through research how would you imagine your future community or society?
Illustrate it below.

Directions: Choose the letter of the correct answer. Write your answer on your answer
sheet.

1. Why is there a need to conduct research in the field of Engineering and

Architecture?
I. To produce environmentally friendly and efficient structures
II. To integrate the utilization of modern technology in their design
III. To ensure that the designed structures are safe and disaster-proof
IV. To determine the utilization of materials and procedure is effective or not
A. I
B. I and II
C. I, II, and III
D. I, II, III, and IV.
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2. Which of these is the importance of research in business and management?

A. Effectiveness & side effects of drugs and therapies
B. Provide solutions to social problems
C. Evaluation of clinical practices
D. Design new product or service
3. Social Weather Bureau conducts research which focuses on the following topics
EXCEPT ___
A. Deals on social behaviors
B. Providing solutions to social problems
C. Determine the problems through surveys
D. Assess ratings of trust of people to their leaders
4. Which aspect of research is the priority of our scientists nowadays?
A. mitigating effects of climate change
B. diagnosis and treatment of viral disease
C. provision of enough food through agriculture
D. formulation of healthy food and proper nutrition
5. What do you think will happen if research will not be conducted in different fields?
I. New procedures and products will not be created
II. Ideas and new knowledge will not be formed
III. Diseases and disorders will not be treated
IV. New discoveries will not exist
A. I and II C. I, II, and III
B. II and III D. I, II, III and IV
6. In the problem statement “What communicative behaviors are used to respond to
co-workers displaying emotional stress?” which field is the focus of the researcher?
A. Anthropology C. Sports Medicine
B. Medical Education D. Communication
7. Diagnosis of either positive or negative COVID results of an individual to a given
test is experimental research in the field of _____?
A. Medicine C. Science
B. Pharmacy D. Engineering
8. Relationship questions tend to explore how one behavior exhibited by people is
related to other types of behavior could be the focus of research under _____
A. Natural Science C. Social Science
B. Behavioral Science D. Physical Science
9. If you would like to understand more how people interact with other beings in a
given community, which field would you conduct research on
A. Natural Science C. Social Science
B. Behavioral Science D. Physical Science
10. Which of the following studies is important in the field of education?
A. Organizational commitment and work performance of women leaders of
Oriental Mindoro
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B. Conceptual, Interpersonal, and Technical Skills of Bank Managers: their

relationships to Operational efficiency
C. Level of musical competencies and the teaching performance of high school
MAPEH teachers in Naujan West District
D. Effects of different detergents on the death rate of paramecium

The following terms used in this module

are defined as follows…

Anthropology is the scientific study of humans, human behavior,

and societies in the past and present.

Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within

organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in
the natural world.

Educational psychology is devoted to the study of how people learn including

differences in learning, gifted learners, and learning disabilities.

Psychological research refers to research that psychologists conduct for systematic

study and analysis of the experiences and behaviors of individuals or groups.
Quasi-experiment is an empirical interventional study used to estimate the causal impact
of an intervention on the target population without random assignment.

Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the
treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise.
Social science is the branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the
relationships among individuals within those societies.

Baraceros, Esther L., (2016). Practical Research 2, Rexbookstore, Inc., Quezon City,
Philippines
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Prieto, Nelia G.et.al., (2017). Practical Research for Senior High School 2 (Quantitative
Research) Lorimar Publishing, Inc., Quezon City, Philippines