What Is Quantitative Research? An Overview and Guidelines

Abstract

In an era of data-driven decision-making, a comprehensive understanding of quantitative research is indispensable. Current guides often provide fragmented insights, failing to offer a holistic view, while more comprehensive sources remain lengthy and less accessible, hindered by physical and proprietary barriers. This gap underscores the urgent need for a clear, accessible guide that demystifies quantitative research, a necessity not just for academic rigor but for practical application. Against this backdrop, this guide offers an overview of quantitative research, elucidating its core motivations, defining characteristics, and methodological considerations. The necessity, importance, relevance, and urgency of quantitative research are articulated, establishing a strong foundation for the subsequent discussion, which delineates the scope, objectivity, goals, data, and methods that distinguish quantitative research, alongside a balanced inspection of its strengths and shortcomings, particularly in terms of data collection and analysis. The guide also addresses various design considerations, ranging from the choice between primary and secondary research, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, to experimental and non-experimental designs. The crucial role of pretesting and piloting instruments is underscored, with a discussion of its goals, focal areas, and participant selection. Data considerations are also examined, covering sampling approaches, sample size determination, and data and resource maximization strategies, as well as comprehensive data preparation techniques including handling missing data, managing outliers, standardizing variables, and verifying assumptions. The guide further delves into analysis considerations, spotlighting the assessment of psychometric properties, diverse analytical approaches, and essential robustness checks. The guide concludes by demystifying the hypothesis testing process, detailing the formulation of null and alternative hypotheses, the interpretation of statistical significance, and the issue of Type I, Type II, Type III, and Type IV errors. Therefore, this guide serves as a valuable compass for researchers seeking to navigate the multifaceted aspects of quantitative research, ensuring rigorous, reliable, and valid scientific inquiry.