How do quantitative researchers collect information?
Specifying the variables
To determine what data need to be collect, the researcher first identifies the variables in the study from the research questions and hypotheses. We learned in Chapter 5 that these variables include independent, dependent, and control variables. Variables represent characteristics or attributes that vary among participants. Researchers must specify their variables in a way that they can be measured .
Determining the Type of instrument needs to gather information
• Demographic Forms. Researchers collect demographic forms to gather basis facts about and characteristics of their participants. Common types of demographic information collected by researchers include gender, age, race, and annual income.
• Performance Measures. Researchers collect performance measures to assess an individuals’s ability to perform on an achievement test, intelligence test, aptitude test, interest inventory, or personality assessment inventory. Participants take tests that measure their achievement, their intelligence or their aptitude. In addition, researchers gather data with instruments that measure an individual’s career interests or assess personality traits.
• Attitudinal Measures.Researchers also measure attitudes of individuals. Researchers use attitudinal measures when they measure narticinants’ feelings toward topics. These measures often ask participants to rate their level of agreement for multiple stratements on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
• Behavioral observations
• Factual Information