Quantitative methods, educational research

Educational research utilizes research methods from the social sciences. These methods are broadly distinguished into quantitative and qualitative ones. 

All biochemical laboratory activities, whether in education, research, or industry, are replete with techniques that must be carried out almost on a daily basis. This chapter outlines the theoretical and practical aspects of some of these general and routine procedures, including use of buffers, pH and other electrodes, dialysis, membrane filtration, lyophilization, centrifugal concentration, and quantitative methods for protein and nucleic acid measurement. 

While most chemists respect chemical education research studies based on quantitative statistical methods more than research studies involving less mathematical (more qualitative) methodologies, few are comfortable performing or evaluating this form of chemical education research. This chapter provides several steps to perform chemical education research involving inferential statistics. These rules are not unique to chemical education research, and are... 

David L. Ferguson is associate professor in the Department of Technology and Society in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has published papers in the areas of quantitative methods, the discovery of algorithms, and computer-based learning environments. He has held research grants in mathematics and computer science education from the National Science Foundation and U. S. 

Quantitative methods in educational research are fundamentally aligned with the successful philosophical-scientific-social legacy of the theologian-philosopher Rend Descartes (1596-1650) involving,... 

Mulford, D. R. Robinson, W. R. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79,139-lAA. Creswell, J. W. Research Design, Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches 2" ed. Sage Thousand Oaks, 2003. 

Mertens, Donna M., Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods, 2" ed.. Sage Publications, 2004. 

In order to answer the research questions a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods (Golafshani 2003, Hofstatter et al. 2010) is used which comprises qualitative interviews with IT students in the higher education sector in Austria and a quantitative analysis of IT study programmes. 

Quantitative research methods have a positivistic basis, which restricts wide scopes of related research due to their narrow and limiting assumptions set as well as specific and measurable date. Hence, the qualitative aspects of research and education are exterminated from consideration and in a way each individual is forced to think according to a set of standards and restrictive regulations. Especially, the formu-larized nature of quantitative research methods are mathematically supported, and... 

---