Ideas behind classifying quantitative research

Summary

This video focuses on how to classify quantitative research by considering multiple perspectives. The speaker emphasizes understanding research as both an activity and an object, exploring three key perspectives: time, structure, and goal. The time perspective involves cross-sectional, longitudinal, and retrospective studies. The structure perspective distinguishes between experimental and observational research. The goal perspective divides research into descriptive or analytical. The video also discusses how to classify research based on whether it involves interventions and comparisons, helping viewers grasp the foundational concepts needed for future exercises.

Takeaways

• 😀 Classifying research requires adopting multiple perspectives.
• 📊 Time, structure, and goal are three key perspectives for understanding research.
• ⏱️ Time-based research includes cross-sectional, longitudinal, and retrospective approaches.
• 🛠️ Structure-based research is divided into experimental (involving interventions) and observational (observing activities).
• 🎯 The goal of research can be descriptive or analytical, with analytical research further classified into prediction, exploration, explanation, and causation.
• 🔍 Cross-sectional research captures a snapshot of a specific moment.
• 📅 Longitudinal research tracks changes over time, either from now onward (prospective) or looking back (retrospective).
• 🔬 Quantitative research focuses on experimental or observational studies, while qualitative research will be covered later.
• 📈 Analytical research seeks to establish relationships between variables, distinguishing between correlation and causation.
• 🧠 Understanding research classification is essential for mastery and success in the course.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of the video script?

The main purpose of the video script is to explain a better way of classifying quantitative research using multiple perspectives, focusing on aspects like time, structure, and goal.

Why are perspectives important in classifying research?

Perspectives are important because they influence how we interpret and classify research. Different perspectives can lead to different categorizations and understanding of the research objectives and outcomes.

What are the three perspectives used to classify research in the video?

The three perspectives discussed in the video are time, structure, and goal.

How is the 'time' perspective used to classify research?

The 'time' perspective classifies research into cross-sectional, longitudinal, and retrospective categories. Cross-sectional research provides a snapshot at a single point in time, longitudinal research follows a subject over time, and retrospective research looks backward to analyze past data.

What is the difference between experimental and observational research from the structure perspective?

In experimental research, the researcher administers an intervention or treatment, directly influencing the study. In observational research, the researcher observes without intervening, allowing subjects to go about their regular activities.

What are the main goals of research classified under the 'goal' perspective?

The main goals of research under the 'goal' perspective are descriptive and analytical. Descriptive research aims to describe characteristics or phenomena, while analytical research involves more complex analyses, such as prediction, exploration, explanation, and causation.

Can you provide an example of cross-sectional research?

An example of cross-sectional research is studying the statistical literacy scores of nursing students at a specific point in time to assess their current level of knowledge.

What is the difference between prediction and causation in analytical research?

Prediction establishes a relationship between an exposure and an outcome but does not imply causation. Causation aims to demonstrate a strong link where the exposure directly influences the outcome.

How can one differentiate between correlation and causation?

Correlation indicates a relationship between two variables but does not imply that one causes the other. Causation suggests that one variable directly affects or determines the outcome of another variable, supported by strong evidence.

What is the significance of understanding experimental designs in research classification?

Understanding experimental designs is crucial for correctly classifying research. It helps distinguish between experimental and observational studies, ensuring accurate identification of research types and avoiding misinterpretation of the study's findings.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Understanding Research Perspectives

The speaker introduces the concept of classifying research by exploring multiple perspectives. They emphasize how human classification depends on the perspective taken and how shifting perspectives can be challenging. The goal is to teach how to view research not just as an activity but also as an object through three main perspectives: time, structure, and goal. Time includes cross-sectional, longitudinal, and retrospective research, structure covers quantitative and qualitative types, and goal examines descriptive versus analytical research.

05:01

⏳ Time, Structure, and Goal in Research

This section expands on the perspectives of time, structure, and goal. Cross-sectional research looks at a current 'snapshot,' longitudinal research examines changes over time, and retrospective research investigates past events. The structure of research is divided into experimental, where the researcher intervenes, and observational, where the researcher merely observes. Finally, the goal perspective differentiates descriptive research (focused on characteristics or phenomena) from analytical research (which includes prediction, exploration, and causation).

10:03

🔍 Experimental and Observational Research

The speaker delves deeper into the structure of research. Experimental research involves the researcher administering an intervention, like a treatment or activity, whereas observational research involves logging or monitoring participants' natural behavior. The focus here is primarily on observational research for this course, with experimental research left for future exercises. There’s an explanation of the distinction between descriptive and analytic research, with descriptive focusing on ‘who, where, when,’ while analytic research investigates exploratory, predictive, or causal relationships.

15:03

📊 Comparing and Understanding Causation

The speaker emphasizes the importance of distinguishing correlation from causation. They explain how researchers seek to establish links between variables in analytical research. This includes exploring relationships between exposure and outcome (independent and dependent variables) and differentiating between prediction and causation. The example provided highlights the challenge of demonstrating that one factor (e.g., piano playing) causes another (e.g., better math skills) rather than just correlating with it.

Keywords

💡Perspective

A perspective refers to the specific viewpoint or approach taken when analyzing or classifying something, such as research. In the video, perspectives are highlighted as key to understanding and classifying research. The speaker mentions that humans often get stuck in one perspective and need to switch between different ones to gain a better understanding, especially in the context of research classification.

💡Cross-sectional

A cross-sectional study captures a snapshot or 'slice of life' at a specific point in time. In the video, cross-sectional research is explained as an approach to collect data from participants at one moment, such as measuring students' statistical literacy scores today. This method contrasts with longitudinal studies that involve data collection over time.

💡Longitudinal

Longitudinal research involves collecting data over time, either prospectively (moving forward in time) or retrospectively (looking back in time). In the video, the speaker describes longitudinal studies as key to understanding changes, like tracking whether students' statistical literacy improves before graduation.

💡Experimental research

Experimental research refers to studies where the researcher actively administers an intervention or treatment. In the video, the speaker notes that experiments involve assigning participants to a treatment (e.g., a pill or a set of exercises), with the researcher directly involved in the process. The goal is often to observe the effects of this intervention on outcomes.

💡Observational research

Observational research involves the researcher observing participants' behavior or conditions without intervening. The video explains that in observational studies, participants go about their normal lives, while the researcher either logs or observes what happens. The speaker contrasts this with experimental research, where participants are assigned to specific treatments.

💡Descriptive research

Descriptive research aims to describe characteristics or phenomena within a population. The video discusses descriptive research as focusing on questions like 'who,' 'where,' and 'when,' giving examples such as incidence of disease or lottery winnings. It does not attempt to explain relationships but rather provides a detailed account of existing conditions.

💡Analytic research

Analytic research is focused on analysis and explanation of relationships between variables. In the video, it is divided into subtypes like prediction, exploration, and causation. The speaker describes analytic research as moving beyond mere description, aiming to establish links between exposures and outcomes, such as determining whether increased caffeine consumption affects GPA.

💡Causation

Causation refers to establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. In the video, the speaker emphasizes that causation goes beyond correlation or prediction, showing a definitive link between an exposure (such as caffeine consumption) and an outcome (like GPA). Causation is more rigorous and convincing than merely identifying a relationship.

💡Correlation

Correlation refers to the relationship between two variables, where changes in one variable are associated with changes in another. The video explains that correlation is often confused with causation, but correlation alone does not prove that one variable causes the other. For example, children who play piano may also excel at math, but this does not mean playing piano causes math proficiency.

💡Randomization

Randomization is a method used in experimental research to randomly assign participants to different treatment groups, ensuring that the assignment is unbiased. The video discusses randomization as a critical feature of true experiments, likening it to a 'flip of a coin' to decide whether participants receive a treatment or placebo. This process helps eliminate bias in the results.

Highlights

The classification of quantitative research requires adopting multiple perspectives, including time, structure, and goal.

Humans often face challenges when switching perspectives, which is crucial for classifying research effectively.

Research can be seen not only as an activity but also as an object, allowing for classification from different viewpoints.

Time perspective introduces three types of research: cross-sectional (a snapshot), longitudinal (prospective or retrospective).

The structure perspective focuses on experimental and observational research, with the first involving active researcher intervention.

In observational research, the researcher observes activities without interfering, allowing the subject to follow their regular life.

Goals of research are categorized as either descriptive (to describe) or analytical (to analyze and establish relationships).

Analytical research includes prediction, exploration, explanation, and causation, each with distinct purposes in linking variables.

Examples of time perspective include statistical literacy scores analyzed from cross-sectional, prospective, and retrospective views.

Quantitative research structures involve experimental studies with assigned interventions and observational studies where no intervention occurs.

Descriptive research aims to describe characteristics or phenomena within a population, addressing questions of 'who,' 'where,' and 'when.'

Analytical research often seeks to predict or explain relationships between variables, exploring causation and correlation.

Experimental research involves treatment and control groups, with the researcher assigning interventions to participants.

Observational research can still include treatment and control groups, but there is no researcher intervention in assigning participants.

Students must focus on mastering experimental research classification early to successfully classify various types of research.

Transcripts

hello um I'm attempting

to come up with a better way of uh

classifying or helping you classify

quantitative research and to do that

we're going to do a little little bit of

uh learning about multiple perspectives

so that's kind of going to be the key

key approach here so first of

all perspectives it's a way of

humans

uh sorry the way humans classify objects

is dependent on the perspective we take

so we have the power to switch

perspectives and we often get caught up

in a perspective of the world and when

we're asked to switch that's when we

have difficulties so classifying

research is going to require that you

take

on perspectives and we're going to take

we're going to look at research from

multiple

perspectives and now in order to to do

this we have to think of research not as

an

activity Al but also as an object and so

that's going to be really important to

uh that's again taking a

perspective all right three useful

perspectives I'm going to go right

through time structure and

goal okay so from time we have

cross-sectional which is a

snapshot a slice of life so to speak and

those are written up in your notes

longitudinal which could be perspective

the research Starts Now moves forward or

retrospective and we start at the end

and we collect data about things that

went on

already okay so that's the idea of

retrospective looking back structure

from the structure perspective we have

either research that's quantitative or

qualitative and I said as I said before

the first 12 or 13 weeks of this uh

course are focused on quanti research we

will look at qualitative research as

multiple uh types you can we'll

introduce them on the chart

quickly uh but in quantitative research

we're in terms of structure we're just

interested in experimental or

observational research we'll talk a

little bit about more than that in the

next

slides and exercise five coming up is

focused on quantitative research just so

you know and the goal uh perspective

helps us see whether the research is

descriptive or analytical

so in analytical well descriptive as it

sounds analytical we're doing some sort

of analysis so the subtypes are

prediction

exploration explanation SL causation

which are kind of the same

thing all right so let's get into the

weeds a little bit so time

cross-sectional so here's an example

what is a statistical literacy score of

him versus nud nursing students

today okay Slice of Life looking at

What's Happening Now perspective will a

statistical literacy score of hm

students improve before graduation so

we're looking

forward and we're collecting some data

now collecting data later and seeing if

there's any change retrospective has a

statistical statistical literacy score

of hm grads improved over the last 10

years so this gives you an example of

flavor some of the language that's used

without getting into the definitions now

with structure we're going taking a

little bit of a different approach

because we're examining

the way the structure works experimental

research the researcher is involved in

administering the interventions we've

talked about that in class already that

uh so administering the intervention the

treatment or the activity the key thing

is that the researcher is involved in

administering

that okay so it's not you going about

your regular life it's like you coming

in somewhere and getting a pill that's

an intervention or a treatment or

getting assigned to an to do exercises

which is an activity so if you're

assigned that means the research is

involved observational the researcher

observes activities so you're going

about your regular life and you're

either logging things or the researchers

observing you somehow in

that okay many possible structures are

under the observational umbrella we're

just going to be focusing on

observational as a group in this course

in the subsequent courses we'll look at

cohort and case control among

others descriptive so now well

descriptive we're focusing on goal as a

perspective so what is the goal of

research is it to

describe okay so describe what kind of

things do we describe we describe a

characteristic of a population or the

existence of a phenomena in a population

so incidents of disease incidence of

Lottery

winnings uh death case Fatality and kind

of the the broad questions we're asking

is who where when so if we're describing

the population right or or the phenomena

analytic research we either do

exploration that's preliminary

research secondary data small samples so

that's very early stage when we're just

kind of feeling our way around maybe

with our eyes half closed prediction is

when we're already trying to get a more

formal establish some sort of formal

relation between exposure some sort of

exposure and outcome also known as

independent and dependent

variable causation goal is to establish

an undeniable link or at least a very

convincing link between exposure and

outcome okay so that's an explanation

this

exposure or this outcome is explained by

this exposure more than just predicted

okay so there's something more going on

than

just a connection all right and we have

a

couple yes no this is an extra slide in

here yes we've got that already okay I

apologize for that slide it shouldn't

have been in there another set of

perspectives so this is from an article

by

elaka and so from here we can see there

is application

objectives inquiry

mode as viewpoints or perspectives and

so we see pure versus applied research

so basic

versus um and so in the Health Sciences

we wouldn't use that well there is some

pure research in health sciences as well

and so the objectives so goals

descriptive or exploratory correlational

versus explanatory so explanatory is

more like causation correlation is more

like

prediction all right inquiry mode

quantitative versus qualitative so that

I call that structure so some similar

similar approach with a little bit

different language and this is a slide

you saw already in the first weeks of

the course or the first week of the

course so you can see the qualitative

versus quantitative divide and some of

the

sub types of

each so we're not classifying abstracts

so this is preparing you for exercise 5

which we'll be taking a look at next uh

this

week process of

elimination okay so again I've talked

about process lination I'm I'm I'm

tweaking it a little bit here so in the

very simple approach what I want you to

look at you have two

steps there's the third step but it's

not on the slide we'll get to it

structure and goal so first you look at

eliminating experimental

is there an assigned treatment versus

control group and if there uh if you can

eliminate experimental then that means

it's observational once you establish

the structure is

experimental uh with Goal you can still

you can you probably not going to be

descriptive but is there a comparison

group if it's experimental there will be

an experimental group there will be a

comparison group but if it's

observational then it might be

correlation not a comparison of means or

rates

okay and this this next slide we'll get

into the details of this so we have the

structure and um I'll let you guys read

through this yourself I don't need to

read all these words out loud so we can

see step goal I've broken it up uh step

one into if experimental if not

experimental step two is the goal if

it's um you try to eliminate descriptive

if you uh can eliminate descriptive then

the goal must be exploration or

prediction okay step three try to

eliminate perspective First Look for

data collection description to get a

sense of

time and here's a little flowchart that

kind of gets across the same ideas that

we're talking about here right so we

start with uh is there an assigned

intervention so I've used the word

assigned as well yes then it's an

experimental study is it randomly

assigned yes or no you have two

different types of

experiments if it's not

assigned then it's

observational okay so that's our our

structure established do we have a

comparison group no there's only one

thing we're studying there's not we're

not doing any comparison it's a

descriptive study otherwise it's anal

analytic study and then we end either

end up with one of these okay so that's

the direction of the exposure exposure

before

outcome uh sorry flowchart here that's a

a perspective is the first one second

one is retrospective and a

cross-sectional study take place at the

same

time all

right so we have that's a flowchart that

that could be useful for you it doesn't

have all of the

different perspectives built in here but

it's pretty

useful yeah okay the

details true experiment okay so these

terms treatment versus

control so treatment is also known as

intervention okay control often is

either some sort of placebo but again

because we in an observational study we

also could have treatment and control we

use that language so it's not only for

experiments so that those words get uh

used in various settings but in the in

an

experiment these are very

um strongly present and then the next

part is randomization how do we assign

group people to the treatment versus

control group flip of a coin is a really

good way of um kind of imagining or

grounding the idea of Random

uh random assignment to

groups uh true experiment picture so the

gold standard we have

here shows random

assignments right you go either to the

treatment group control

group data collection

one then we administer the treatment

Placebo no treatment and then we end up

with observation two and we see if

there's any change so that's a

perspective obviously it has to be a

perspective design because we need to

assign people to treatment or control

group how do iy an experiments Step One

is there a treatment and control group

if yes then go to step two if no then

not an experiment you're done step two

does the researcher desde decide which

participants get treat treatment and

which do not if yes then experiment if

no then

observational okay then not experiment

now you I seem to be repeating myself

maybe to for you here over and over

about this experiment but I find that

the students that kind of focus on this

and use this will be successful in

classifying research because it's really

helpful and the experiment if you can't

get your mind around how the experiment

works then that's going to really hurt

you in terms of the classifying research

and we want you to achieve Mastery as

early as possible so that you can focus

on other parts of the course and other

uh courses that you're taking and so

that's it's worth spending the time with

that some statements indicating goals

cause Okay so this is important to

differentiate between cause and not

cause so if you see words like

effect impact um that's an indication

of uh causation so does consumption of

400 Mig G of caffeine per

day uh increase their GPA

so does a increase B so that means if

you if you give a you're going to get

more or less B in this case both

increase right

um in the second our children who play

piano is children better at math that's

not really showing does playing piano

impact because maybe those people

playing piano those children playing

piano are ones that also have parents

who help them with their math homework

or maybe they're gra they gravitate

towards piano and so maybe it's the same

sort of mindset in children that

gravitates them towards piano also has

them better math so we don't we're not

saying that a causes B um or playing

piano causes being better at math if

that is even true so relation versus

causation uh very important too often

times students uh and humans out in the

world in the non-math discourse world or

non- stats discourse World we'll use the

word proof and so we don't want to use

that unless we we have some evidence for

it so now you can understand the

following statement this observational

correlation study found that an increase

in Reading assigned material is strongly

associated with Higher Learning outcomes

and so with that I send you to actually

send you to the last slide um but and

but also to the readings and so I've

adjusted some of the ways I've

discussed the classifying research in

the readings booklets

but I think that you'll still gain

something from spending time with the

readings there okay so data types

perspective you have you have you have

either compare rates compare means or

correlation if you have two variables or

more so we talked about that in class

data collection it's either observation

or survey OBS word observation comes up

twice so observation in this case under

data collection means that I'm observing

I'm collecting data from

observations or I can collect data by

doing surveys so again two different

approaches to the uh to data collection

so again two different perspectives on

classifying research so just because you

see the word we observed XY z um that

could still be an

experiment okay so if you imagine I'm

I'm um assigning you to treatment a

versus treatment B and then I observe

you in the next few weeks and see how

your behavior changes or something like

that then I'm still doing an

observation from data collection

perspective but from the structural

perspective you're doing an experiment

okay so this is where we breaking up and

from the perspectives will help you say

okay which perspective am I using here

so that's going to be very useful hope

you get something out of this video I'm

not sure whether you're going to enjoy

it it's at what are we timing wise at oh

16 minutes a lot longer than I wanted to

and I'm feel like I'm speaking very

quickly thank you for watching