Competency: Collects data using appropriate instruments.

What is Quantitative Data-Collection Techniques?

Data are pieces of information or facts known by people in this world. Appearing measurable, numerical, and related to a metrical system, they are called quantitative data. These data result from sensory experiences whose descriptive qualities such as age, shape, speed, amount, weight, height, number, positions, and the like are measurable. Denoting quantity, these words appear in records in numerical forms that are either discrete (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...) or continuum (amount of flour...). However, these quantitative data become useful only in so far as they give answers to your research questions (Russell 2013; Creswell 2013).

Techniques in Collecting Quantitative Data

Collecting data is one major component of any type of research. Undermining its importance would result in the production of inaccurate data sufficient to render your research study invalid. Hence, in collecting quantitative data, stress is given to the accuracy or appropriateness of your data-gathering technique as well as of the right instrument to collect the data. The following are the most used quantitative data- gathering techniques along with the data-gathering instruments for each technique (Matthews 2010; Badke 2012; Thomas 2013; Woodwell 2014).

1. Observation

Using your sense organs, you gather facts or information about people, things, places, events, and so on, by watching and listening to them; then, record the results of the functioning of your eyes and ears. Expressing these sensory experiences to quantitative data, you record them with the use of numbers. For instance, watching patients lining up at a medical clinic, instead of centering your eyes on the looks of the people, you focus your attention on the number, weight, and height of every patient standing up at the medical clinic’s door.

As a researcher preoccupied with collecting quantitative data through observation, you begin to count the number of patients and get the measurement of their height and weight. These numbers representing the results of your counting and measurement are then jotted down in your record notebook. Seeing, touching, and hearing the sources of data personally, you engage yourself in direct observation. It is an indirect observation if you see and hear them, not through your own eyes and ears, but by means of technological and electronic gadgets like audiotapes, video records, and other recording devices used to capture earlier events, images, or sounds.

2. Survey

The survey is a data-gathering technique that makes you obtain facts or information about the subject or object of your research through the data- gathering instruments of interview and questionnaire. This is the most popular data-gathering technique in quantitative and qualitative researcher studies for the researchers are free to use not just one survey instrument but also these two following data-gathering instruments.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire is a paper containing a series of questions formulated for an individual and independent answering by several respondents for obtaining statistical information. Each question offers a number of probable answers from which the respondents, on the basis or their judgment, will choose the best answer. Making up a questionnaire are factual and opinionated questions. Questions to elicit factual answers are formulated in a multiple-choice type, and those to ask about the respondents’ views, attitudes, preferences, and other opinionated answers are provided with sufficient space where the respondents could write their sentential answers to opinionated questions.

Responses yielded by this instrument are given their numerical forms (numbers, fractions, percentages) and categories and are subjected to statistical analysis. The questionnaire is good for collecting data from a big number of respondents situated in different places because all you have to do is either hand the paper to the respondents or to send it to them through postal or electronic mail. However, ironically, your act of sending the questionnaires to respondents, especially to those in remote areas, is susceptible to waste of money, time, and effort, for you do not have any assurance of the return of all or a large number of fully accomplished questionnaires.

Interview

A survey as a data-gathering technique likewise uses the interview as its data-gathering instrument. Similar to a questionnaire, an interview makes you ask a set of questions, only that, this time, you do it orally. Some, however, say that with the advent of modern technology, the oral interview is already a traditional way of interviewing, and the modern ways happen through the use of modern electronic devices such as mobile phones, telephones, smartphones, and other wireless devices.

ü Order of Interview Questions

In asking interview questions, you see to it that you do this sequentially; meaning, let your questions follow a certain order such as the following (Sarantakos 2013; Fraenbel 2012):

First set of questions – opening questions to establish friendly relationships, like questions about the place, the time, the physical appearance of the participant, or other non-verbal things not for audio recording.

Second set of questions – generative questions to encourage open-ended questions like those that ask about the respondents’ inferences, views, or opinions about the interview topic.

Third set of questions – directive questions or close-ended questions to elicit specific answers like those that are answerable with yes or no, with one type of an object, or with definite period of time and the like.

Fourth set of questions – ending questions that give the respondents the chance to air their satisfaction, wants, likes, dislikes, reactions, or comments about the interview. Included here are closing statements to give the respondents some ideas or clues on your next move or activity about the results of the interview.

ü Guidelines in Formulating Interview Questions

From the varied books on research are these tips on interview question formulation that you have to keep in mind to construct effective questions to elicit the desired data for your research study:

a. Use clear and simple language.

b. Avoid using acronyms, abbreviations, jargons, and highfalutin terms.

c. Let one question elicit only one answer; no double-barrel question.

d. Express your point in exact, specific, bias-free, and gender-free language.

e. Give way to how your respondents want themselves to be identified.

f. Establish continuity or the free flow of the respondents’ thoughts by using appropriate follow-up questions (e.g., Could you give an example of it? Would you mind narrating what happened next?).

g. Ask questions in a sequential manner; determine which should be your opening, middle, or closing questions.

3. Experiment

An experiment is a scientific method of collecting data whereby you give the subjects a sort of treatment or condition then evaluate the results to find out the manner by which the treatment affected the subjects and to discover the reasons behind the effects of such treatment on the subjects. This quantitative data-gathering technique aims manipulate or control conditions to show which condition or treatment has effects on the subjects and determine how much condition or treatment operates or functions to yield a certain outcome.

The process of collecting data through experimentation involves the selection of subjects or participants, pre-testing the subjects prior to the application of any treatment or condition, and giving the subjects a post-test to determine the effects of the treatment on them. These components of the experiment operate in various ways. Consider the following combination or mixture of the components that some research studies adopt:

These three words: treatment, intervention, and condition, mean the same thing in relation to experimentation. These are the terms to mean the things given or applied to the subjects to yield certain effects or changes on the said subjects. For instance, in finding out the extent of the subjects’ communicative competence, put these participants in a learning condition where they will perform varied communicative activities such as dramatizing a story, round-table discussions, interviewing people, table-topic conversation, and the like.

Dealing with or treating their communicative abilities in two or more modes of communication is giving them multiple treatments. The basic elements of experiments, which are subjects, pre-test, treatment, and post-test, do not operate only for examining causal relationships but also for discovering, verifying, and illustrating theories, hypotheses, or facts. (Edmonds 2013; Morgan 2014; Picardie 2014)

4. Content Analysis

Content analysis is another quantitative data-collection technique that makes you search through several oral or written forms of communication to find answers to your research questions. Used in quantitative and qualitative research studies, this data-collection method is not only for examining printed materials but also for analyzing information coming from non-book materials like photographs, films, videotapes, paintings, drawings, and the like. Here, you focus your study on a single subject or on two entities to determine their comparative features. Any content analysis you want to do is preceded by your thorough understanding of your research questions because these are the questions to guide you in determining which aspect of the content of the communication should you focus on to find the answers to the main problem of your research.

Measurement Scales for Quantitative Data

In quantitative research, measurements of data expressed in numerical forms form in a scale or one that consists series of graduated quantities, values, degrees, numbers, and so on. Thinking about the type and scale of measurement that you have to use in your quantitative research is important because your measurement choices tell you the type of statistical analysis to use in your study. Not knowing which scale of measurement to use may result in your erroneous examination of the data.

There are two categories of scales of measurement: qualitative scales of measurement and quantitative scales of measurement. Under quantitative scales of measurement are these two: the nominal scale to show the classification of things based on a certain criterion such as gender, origin, brand, etc., and the ordinal scale to indicate the rank or hierarchical order of things. The quantitative scales of measurement are the interval scale for showing equal differences or intervals between points on the scale in an arbitrary manner (showing differences in attitudes, inclinations, feelings, ideas, fears, opinions, etc.) and the ratio scale, like the interval scale, that shows equal differences or intervals between points on the scale. However, these two quantitative scales of measurement are not exactly the same, in that, the latter gives value to zero, while the former does not give any value to zero for the value depends solely on the respondent (Schreiber 2011; Letherby 2013).

Examples:

1. Nominal Scale – categorizing people based on gender, religion, position, etc. (one point for each)

* religion – Catholic, Buddhist, Protestant, Muslim

* gender – male, female

* position – CEO, vice-president, director, manager, assistant manager

Summing up the points per variable, you will arrive at a certain total that you can express in terms of percentages, fractions, or decimals like: 30% of males, 25% of females, 10% of Catholics, 405 of Buddhists, and so forth.

2. Ordinal Scale – ranking or arranging the classified variables to determine who should be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., in the group

Interval Scale – showing equal intervals or differences of people’s views or attitudes like this one example of a scale called Likert Attitude Scale:

4. Ratio Scale – rating something from zero to a certain point

Performance in Math subject – a grade of 89% (from 0 to 100%)