Week 4

Tuesday, 25/1/2011

            Two groups presented on the quantitative methodologies today. The first group presented on Correlational Research. I always had the perception that correlational research can also prove one variable causes the other. After listening to them, I realize that correlational research only proves the degree of relationship that exists between the variables, and we cannot say that one causes the other. The entire scatter plot thing helps to understand whether there is a correlation or no correlation exists. We use correlation coefficient to find the relationships. It was just that the example of research that they provided was not up-to-date as it is in the 1960s. Although the topic was interesting, but the findings and the methods employed might not be relevant to our situation now.

            The second group presented on the experimental research. Experimental research is best used to test cause-and-effect relationships. Usually in experimental research, we conduct pre- and post-test to gather the results. In experimental research, we can have independent and dependent variables and manipulate the variable to know whether the result is caused by the variable/intervention or not.

            After the presentations, Dr. Izaham continued his lecture on quantitative methods. This time, he also covered on the topic of survey method, which is the one that I am interested to do. Survey is also called a descriptive research, where it is common in education field. Survey can be longitudinal or cross-sectional. As it is concerned in finding the answer to the question ‘what is’, it is the most favourable method to be employed in education. The survey can be conducted by distributing questionnaires, having checklists or scales. Since it is quite easy to do, I am planning to use survey for my research.