Quantitative Research Methods 1.What is scientific research? What is quantitative research? 2.Why we need research? 3.Who is conducting the research? 4.What is the research process? 5.What is the language of research?

1. Quantitative Research Methods
Lecture 1
1.What is scientific research? What is quantitative research?
2.Why we need research?
3.Who is conducting the research?
4.What is the research process?
5.What is the language of research?

2. 1.What is scientific research? What is
quantitative research?
• Methods of knowing:
▫ by tenacity (“something is true
because it has always been true”);
▫ by intuition (“something is true
because it’s self-evident and stands to
reason”);
▫ by authority (“something is true
because a trusted source says so”);
▫ by scientific research (“something is
true because research results tell so”).

3. 1.What is scientific research? What is
quantitative research?
• Characteristics of Scientific Research (Wimmer
& Dominick, 1997, pp. 9-11):
▫ public (vs. private)
▫ objective (vs. subjective)
▫ empirical (vs. speculative)
▫ systematic and cumulative (vs. ad-hoc and
discontinued)
▫ predictive (vs. time/space-bound)

4. 2.Why do we the scientific research?
• Purposes of Scientific Research: to
discover/generate general laws underlying a
social process (i.e., theory) that help to
▫ describe the current state or past trend of the
process
▫ explain the causes of the process
▫ predict the future trajectory of the process
▫ control (i.e., intervene) the direction, pace, and
outcome of the process

5. A research for this class…
• Pre-course survey
• Q: what decisions can I make from the this data?

6. 3.Who is conducting the research?
• Decision makers in industry and academic
initiated the research
• In industry:
▫ Internally: a research expert within the
organization
▫ Externally: a research company
 Arab Media Outlook was conducted by Deloitte
 Nielson: market research company “what people
watch, what people buy”
• In academic: a professor

8. Arab Media Outlook, 2015-2018

9. 4.What is the research process?
4.1 Pre-research
4.2 Research
4.3 Post-research

10. 4.1. Pre-research Phase
• Identifying a need for research
• Research questions guide the research
• Research hypotheses
• Deciding on the appropriate Research Methods

11. Research Methods
• Quantitative or Qualitative?
▫ Survey
▫ Content analysis
▫ Experiment
▫ Interview
▫ Focus group
▫ Observation
▫ Case study
▫ ……

12. Basic Types of Qualitative Methods
Focus group Interview Observation

13. Basic Types of Quantitative Methods
Survey Experiment Content analysis

14. What is Survey?
• Survey is a research technique that uses a
standardized questionnaire to collect
information about attitudes, opinions,
behaviors, and background and lifestyle
characteristics from a sample of respondents.

15. What Is Experiment?
Experiment is a procedure in which subjects are
first randomly assigned to experimental and
control conditions, with those under
experimental condition(s) given exposure to
certain stimulus or treatment whereas those
under control condition given no exposure, in
order to assess the effects of the message.

16. Example
A research on public policy:
Framing, Psychological Distance, &
Audience Perception An experiment on
perception of the BRI by Chinese and UAE
students (Shujun Jiang et al, 2018)

17. 2.9
4.12
4.15
3.79
3.22
3.24
4.36
4.29
3.95
3.33
3.85
2.48
3.3
3.34
3.19
3.01
3.31
4.09
3.94
3.71
3.58
3.91
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
I understand China's the Belt and Road Initiative
B1 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit my country.
B2 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit COUNTRIES along the route.
B3 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit INDIVIDUALS in the countries along
route.
B4 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit me.
B5 UAE plays an important strategic role in China’s the Belt and Road Initiative
A1 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit my country.
A2 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit COUTRIES along the route.
A3 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit INDIVIDUALS in the countries along
route.
A4 The Belt and Road Initiative will benefit me.
A5 UAE plays an important strategic role in China’s the Belt and Road Initiative
Perception of BRI
China UAE

18. Hypothesis testing
Before
Chin
a
Individual
Frame
ANOVA
No
differenceSocietal Frame
Control
UAE Individual
Frame
ANOVA
No
differenceSocietal Frame
Control
After
China Individual
Frame
T-test Sig.
Individual >
Societal
A3
Societal Frame
UAE Individual
Frame
T-test
No difference
Societal Frame
After
Societal
Frame
China T-test
No differenceUAE
Individual
Frame
China T-test Sig.
China > UAE
A2
A3UAE
Hypothesis was partially supported
For individual new frames, socially proximal entity (China) > socially distant
entity (UAE)

19. What is Content Analysis?
• Content analysis is a research method for the
studying and analyzing communication content
in a systematic, objective, and quantitative
manner for the purpose of measuring variables.
• In content analysis, communication content is
examined independently of those who produced
it. Communication professionals are not queried
about their attituds, opinions, and motivations
in the production of the content.

20. Example
• A research on News Produsers:
• Factors Influencing User Engagement in
Instagram News Produsers’ Accounts: A Case
in the UAE (Mansour Alameri & Shujun Jiang,
2018)

21. ALETIHADAE ALKHALEEJ.AE ALBAYANNEWS
Top Three UAE Official Newspapers’ Instagram
Accounts

22. UAE_BARQ NET_AD 3MEED_NEWS
Top Three UAE Non-official News Produser’
Instagram Accounts

23. Post with soft news are more attracted to comments than posts with hard news.

24. 4.2. Research Phase
• In industry:
▫ Research expert meets executives to learn
research question, research methods, relevant
population, timetable, budget
▫ Then, literature review—measurement—train data
collectors—collect data– data analysis—report
• In academic
▫ Professors do all the above and write a paper for
conference or academic journal publication

25. 4.3. Post-research phase
• Executives evaluate the research results and
make decision
• Professors evaluate the results and limitations to
improve future studies.

26. 5.What is the language of research?
• 5.1. Theory
▫ “Theory is a set of related propositions that presents a
systematic view of phenomena by specifying
relationships among concepts.” (Winner and
Dominick, 1997, p. 11)
▫ Theory aims to explain the causes and predict the
consequences of a process as general as possible (i.e.,
as time-less and space-less as possible).

27. 5.2 What Is Concept?
• A concept is the smallest element in a theory, as
bricks in a building;
• A concept is the abstract representation of a
phenomenon under investigation;
• Some authors call a broad concept as “construct”
that entails a number of narrow concepts; however,
the difference between construct and concept is
always relative because a construct may be the
constituent concept of another construct whereas a
concept may contain other concepts.

28. 5.3 What Is Relationship?
• A relationship is a specification of the structural
connection between or among concepts in a
theory;
• The specification of a relationship includes:
▫ the nature (correlational or causal) of the relationship;
▫ the form (linear or otherwise) of the relationship;
▫ the direction (positive or negative) of the relationship;
▫ the strength (strong or modest) of the relationship.

29. Examples of Relationship
• Need for the Internet: dissatisfaction with the
conventional media and expected satisfaction with the
Internet drives adoption and use of the Internet

30. 5.4 What Is Proposition?
• A formal presentation of the nature, form,
direction, and strength of a relationship
between/among theoretical concepts, which
could and should be in all three formats:
▫ Verbal description
▫ Graphic illustration
▫ Mathematical specification

31. Example of a Proposition
• Knowledge gap increases over time as the
different segments of a society learn new
information at a differential rate.
High SES Group
Low SES Group
Time
Knowledge
(Kh-Kl)=a+bTime

32. 5.5 Terms Related to Theory
Narrowly Used Broadly Used
Hypothesis
a tentative theory
without fully tested
a theory at a early
stage
Model
a mathematical
version of a theory
a formally stated
theory
Framework
an analytic plan
based on a theory
a theory used for
empirical analysis

33. An example of TPB model

34. 5.6 Research Procedure
Conceptualization Fieldwork Analysis
Sampling ReportingOperationalization

35. 5.7 What Is Conceptualization?
• A thought process to identify key concepts and
formulate their structural relationship, based on
existing theory and past research;
• Conceptualization is to translate concrete events
and/or phenomena to abstract symbols and
propositions, which will necessarily ignore rich
details of the reality.

36. Structural Relationship among
Theoretical Concepts
Outcome
(Dependent
Variable)
Cause (Independent
Variable)
Control/Confound
Variable
Mediator
(Intervening
Variable)
Direct Impact
Indirect Impact
Conditioner
(Moderator Variable)

37. 5.8 What Is Operationalization?
• A process to translate the abstract concepts into
concrete variables that can be quantitatively
measured by a questionnaire (in survey), coding
sheet (in content analysis), physiological
instruments (in experiment), and other means of
data collection;
• The quality of operationalization is evaluated by
▫ validity
▫ reliability
▫ practicality

38. From Conceptualization to
Operationalization
Concept
Variable
Measure
Reality
Conceptualization
Operationalization
Validity
Reliability

39. Comparison among Concept,
Variable, and Measure
Concept Variable Measure
Consumption
Behavior
Having happy
meal
How many happy
meal did you eat last
month?
Shopping
Behavior
Online
Shopping
How often did you
shop online?

40. 5.9 What is Measurement?
• Measurement: is a set of rules for assigning
numbers, which represent values of varying
degrees of precision, for reported or observed
behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and other
individual, group, organization, content, or issue
characteristics.
• Measurement should be
 Valid
 Reliable

41. 5.9.1 What is Validity and Reliability?
• Validity addresses whether or not you have
asked the right question to get the answers that
represents the phenomenon you are
researching.
• Reliability addresses the issue of the consistency
of the question that measures the concept being
studied.

42. 5.9.1 What Is Validity & Reliability?
• Validity: the extent to which the results of a
study (i.e., the concepts and/or their
relationship) represent what the study is
intended to find.
• Reliability: the extent to which the results of a
study can be replicated among the same
population at a different time or among different
population(s) at any time.

43. 5.9.1 What is Validity & Reliability?
• Internal validity is concerned with whether the
measurement is an accurate representation of
the concept being studied.
 E.g. internet use vs internet access
• External validity refers to whether the results of
a research study are generalizable to the
population of interest.
 E.g. A study of college student vs population

44. 5.9.1 Validity vs. Reliability
Invalid & Unreliable Reliable but Invalid Valid & Reliable

45. 5.9.1 Evaluation of Validity and
Reliability
• Validity is a conceptual question that doesn’t
have any direct and conclusive way of testing.
• Reliability is an empirical question that can be
evaluated based on test-retest data.