Read the summary and the most important questions on Business Research Methods | 9780198809876 | Emma Bell; Alan Bryman; Bill Harley

• 7 The nature of quantitative research

• What are the quantitative researcher approaches?

  A deductive approach
  epistomology -> positivism
  Ontology -> objectivism

• 7.1 The main steps in quantitative research

• What are the main steps in quantitative research?

  1. Elaborating theory
  2. Devising hypothesis
  3. Selecting the research design
  4. Devising measures of the concept (=operationalization)
  5. Select the research sites
  6. Selecting of subjects
  7. Administration research instruments/ collect data
  8. Processing data = process of turning collected information into data
  9. Analysis of the data 
  10. Developing findings and conclusion/ consider the connections between the findings that emerge out of step 9.
  11. Writing up the research
  LOOP BACK > once published, they become part of the knowledge domain. Deductivism (step 2) indudctivism (the loop)

• 7.2 Concepts and their measurements

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• What is the difference between indicator and a measure?

  Measure > can be taken to refer to things that can be relatively unambiguously counted > qunatities
  Indicator > interested in the cause of variation > is devised or already exists and that is employed as thought it were a measure of a concept

• How can indicators be devised?

  - Through a question that is part of a survey
  - recording behaviour through structured observation schedule
  - Through official statistics
  - Through examination of mass media content through content analysis

• What are the reasons for using multiple-indicator measures?

  1. (!!) Problems with reliance with a single indicator
  1. incorrectly classify many individuals
  2. only a portion of the underlying concept
  3. much finer distinction

• 7.3 Reliability

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• What are three types of reliability?

  1. Stability: is the measure stable overtime? (test-retest methods)
     
  2. Internal reliability: whether or not the indicators that make up the scale or index are consistent (split half, cronbach's alpa)
  3. Inter-rater reliability - Inconsistency between the observers, possibility that there is a lack of consistency in their decisions

• 7.6 The main preoccupations of quantitative researchers

• What are four distinctive main preoccupation for quantitative researchers?

  1. Measurement: concerned with reliability and validity
     
  2. Causality
  1. why things are the way
  2. relationship between the dependent and independent variables can be difficult in cross-sectional research
  3. Methods or convincing inferences are need to produce confidence in the researcher's causal inferences
  3. Generalization
  1. Can findings be generalized from sample to population?
  1. How representative are samples? 
  4. Replication
  1. minimizing contamination from researcher biases or values>explicit description of procedures
  2. Ability to replicate and reproduce the findings

• 7.7 The critique of quantitative research

• What are the three kinds of criticism?

  1. Criticism of quantitative research in general:
     
  1. fail to distinguish people and social instruction from 'the world of nature
  2. measurement process possesses an artificial and spurious sense of precision accuracy
  2. Criticism of the epistemological and ontological foundations:
  1. reliance on instruments and procedures hinders the connection between research and everyday life. Concerned with ecological validity
  3. Criticism of specific methods and research designs
  1. The analysis of relationships between variables creates a static view of social life that is independent of people's lives. 

• 7.8 Is it always like this?

• Explain are the two considerations of the gap between ideal and acutal practice?

  1. Those of use who write about and teach reesearch methods cannot cover every eventuality that can arise in the process of business research
     
  1. Reverse operationism (measurement can entail much more of an inductive element than implied. Sometimes measures are developed that in turn lead to conceptualization)
  2. Providing a good account of good practice
  1. researchers do not follow recommended practices (because of cost and time restrictions)
  2. Non-prob. Sampling not used because of 
  1. impossibility or difficulty 
  2. time and costs 
  3. opportunity to study a certain group presents itself and represents too good an opportunity to miss.

• 8 Sampling in quantitative research

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• What is non-sampling error?

  Difference between the population and the sample that arises from:
  

  • Inadequate sampling
  • Non-response (member or sample are unable or refuse to take part)
  • Poor data collection
  • Poor question wording
  • Poor interviewing
  • Poor data processing