Business & Finance Small Business

What Is Quantitative Research?

You probably have the notion that you are up to a very difficult task when you are made to conduct a quantitative research.
Well, in a sense, you can really be.
Essentially, quantitative research deals with factors or subjects measurable by systematic methods that commonly include statistics and hypotheses.
Often, they are used to determine the relationships between factors or subjects in the form of tests and empirical observations.
How does this work? Suppose you have two factors whose relationship with each other you want to test and even measure.
As it is common in most quantitative research, the subjects whose relationship you want to test are likely to be abstract concepts-like happiness, commitment and even violence.
They manifest in certain situations or as reactions from a select few people.
The first method under quantitative research is to gather your sample or the specific set of subjects you want to study.
For example, you want to test employee commitment and its relationship to communication.
To perform this research, you need to determine a representative sample set of employees.
You may also include all of the employees in an entire company.
Next, you would have to put them under study and collect data from them.
Often, surveys that are already pre-determined and are based in a certain set of framework are used.
You would administer the survey among your sample and then count the results based on their answers.
When you have the results, you would subject them to statistical analysis and from there you would determine the relationship of the two factors you are measuring.
Suppose you have found out that the majority of the employees who have answered your survey has graded the communication in their company as above average and has indicated that they are effectively committed to their work.
Given this data, it would be then safe to predict that the trend of commitment rising is correlated to the satisfaction with the communication aspect.
However, you should always remember that your results would only hold true in your sample.
But it may not be true for other samples of the same type.
Empirical data stays to its manifestation would only be proven by a specific study in real time.
Therefore, you need to know how to describe your results in that it would only be distinct for your sample and not as a generalization for an entire whole.
Quantitative Research is very vital for a small business to succeed.
Ensure to do it right.


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