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Overview of Chapter 8:
Understanding Quantitative Research
Design This chapter introduces you
to principles that are critical to evaluating the
basic architecture of a quantitative study. The
chapter presents material on various dimensions of
research design and techniques of research
control. The first section of the
chapter provides you with an overview of some of
the fundamental features of research design in
quantitative studies. The major dimensions of
research design (e.g., whether there is an
intervention; whether the study is cross-sectional
or longitudinal) are described. It's important to
note that researchers generally have considerable
latitude in designing studies, but design decisions
have implications for the interpretability of the
study findings. The next few sections of the
chapter explain differences between research
designs in which the researcher does or does not
introduce an intervention of treatment--the
differences between experimental,
quasi-experimental, and nonexperimental designs.
These sections introduce you to several important
research design issues--including manipulation and
randomization. The relationship between research
design and causal inference is emphasized. However,
the text stresses the fact that although
nonexperimental research limits the researcher's
ability to draw causal inferences, many research
problems are simply not amenable to an experimental
design. Chapter 8 also introduces
some types of quantitative research that are
categorized by the purposes they serve rather than
by the designs that are employed. Among these types
of studies are surveys, evaluations, and outcomes
research. In all cases, the main purpose is to
acquaint you with some terms used in connection
with various types of research and to present an
overview of the purposes and procedures of the
various approaches. Finally, Chapter 8 also
describes how quantitative studies can be designed
to maximize the quality and interpretability of
study results through careful control over
extraneous variables. Research control over
external and situational factors and over intrinsic
subject characteristics are discussed. This
discussion is especially important because you will
need to consider what design alternatives might
have strengthened a study and how believable the
study findings are, given the limitations of the
design. Chapter 8 also introduces the concepts of
internal and external validity and points out that
compromise is often needed to balance the
requirements for these two criteria. Study
Chapter 8 in the
text, pages 165-204. Use the forum
for Questions for Instructor on Part 3 in
WebCT for Nurs
400A
or Nurs
400B
to post questions about things you don't understand
in Chapter 8. |