Theme 3: Quantitative methods

Both texts, Mixed research and online learning: Strategies for improvement by Lowenthal & Leech and Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment by Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, concern online learning. The former is a presentation of mixed research and how it could be used to improve research regarding online learning. The latter is a research paper about how emotions impact online learning.

Mixed research and online learning: Strategies for improvement

This paper introduces mixed research, which is a research that uses both quantitative and qualitative sampling, methods, data and analysis. One part I found important was that the authors mentioned that for a research to be fully mixed, it has to mix quantitative and qualitative types at multiple steps (research-question, sampling, method and analysis) during the research. If these are only mixed in one or some steps, the research can only be called partially mixed. I found this paper rewarding, since I haven’t heard the term “mixed research” before and any detailed information regarding it. I believe that this type of research should be used in more research areas, since quantitative and qualitative research often complement each other, and together can gather more valuable information.

Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment

In Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment a questionnaire with open-ended questions and collections from conference postings were used to collect data regarding emotions in online learning. These methods of collecting data are seen as quantitative, where a questionnaire is a typical quantitative method. However, the authors mention that open-ended questions were used and that answers were collected as qualitative data, which affirms what Lowenthal & Leech (2009) say about open-ended qualitative questions. Because of that the questions were open-ended the collected answers weren’t as strict and directed as they could be, and more usually are in quantitative questionnaires. The authors got 79 completed questionnaires, however with qualitative answers. Therefore, I think it’s hard to say whether this paper leans more towards a quantitative or a qualitative research. Qualitative data doesn’t often come in great numbers (Lowenthal & Leech, 2009; Rubin & Chisnell, 2008), but since they used (quantitative) questionnaires to gather it, they were able to get responses from a lot of people.

I would say that the authors used a quantitative method to gather qualitative data, which they later analyzed through statistical and quantitative analysis. They analyzed by comparing and clustering the answers by using factor analysis, which helped them find similar answers and group them into categories. Since the authors use a mix of a quantitative method, qualitative data and quantitative analysis I believe this research could be called somewhat of a mixed research. It’s not an obvious and rich use of different types of methods and analysis in the paper and it would therefore, in my eyes, be classified only as a partially mixed research, as mentioned by Lowenthal & Leech (2009).

 

One problem with using a statistical and quantitative method to analyze qualitative data is that it is hard to precisely define the meaning of qualitative answers and, as mentioned by the authors regarding the subject, hard to “identify and label subjective and emotional experience in text-based evidence”. Qualitative responses aren’t as easy to compare since every answers could be interpreted differently and because of that the answers often differ. Qualitative data is more often used to get deeper and more detailed information compared to quantitative data, and is usually uncommon for information about general use (Rubin & Chisnell, 2008).

References:

Lowenthal & Leech (2009). Mixed research and online learning: Strategies for improvement . In T. T. Kidd (Ed.), Online education and adult learning: New frontiers for teaching practices. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Cleveland-Innes & Campbell (in press). Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.

Rubin & Chisnell (2008). Handbook of Usability Testing.