Quantitative Communication Research: Basic Concepts

Basic Concepts in Quantitative Communication Research

Quantitative researchers are often interested in how an understanding of a particular communication phenomenon might be generalized to a larger population and tend to ask and answer “what questions” in an attempt to generalize about a certain type of communication behavior (Allen et al., 2009). The general purpose of quantitative communication purpose is to study and classify communicative phenomena, measure them, and construct statistical methods to explain the phenomena (Wrench & Punyant-Carter, 2012). Quantitative communication research has (at least) four specific purposes: describing, explaining and predicting communication phenomena and ultimately controlling communication events.

(2009) and Frey et al. (2000), for example, there are at least three types of quantitative communication research designs, namely: experimental design, survey design and content analysis. In experimental design, the research manipulates one variable called the independent variable to see how that manipulation affects another variable referred to as the dependent variable. Campbell and Stanley (1963) provide a very good description of several archetypes of experimental research design. This type of research is best suited for prediction and control research for establishing causality or difference among groups. Meanwhile, survey design is a research method where a series of questions are generated and after collecting and analyzing responses to those questions, conclusions can be drawn. This type of research is best suited for describing and explaining a communication phenomenon and the relationships between

First, using previous research as well as the instinct of the researcher, one use theory to predict relationships among or differences between selected variables. This variables selection process and the theoretical explanation of how they are related is referred to as isolating a particular research problem where the researcher then identify appropriate hypotheses to be tested completes the isolation process. Second, research design selection follows once the appropriate variables relevant to the applicable theory had been identified. As mentioned above, there are two general design options: experimental designs and survey designs in quantitative communication research. Experimental designs are typically best suited for making causal claims and describing differences between groups while survey designs are best suited for describing characteristics of groups and explaining relationships between variables (i.e., correlations). Third, once the conceptual variables have been identified and the design selected, the researcher operationalize variables in the study. Operationalization is the act of taking a conceptual definition and determining exactly how one can best observe of manipulate that variable. Fourth, an