27 Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research [brief overview]

Do you remember the stunningly amazing journal article deconstruction chapter that provided you with this general layout? We gonna be hanging out section 5 for a while, talk ’bout research questions, variables, being skeptical, and METHODS.

1. Title 

2. Abstract 

3. Introduction

4. Literature review

5. Methods 

• The methods section explains the specific procedures and actions done and who they were done to (the participants).
• It typically includes the procedures, participants, and analysis.
  • ex:  In our experiment, we recorded the test scores before and after Dunkin’ was added to campus. Our participants were 150 students who were all members of the Social Scientific: Communication Research Methods Class. We specifically selected academic scores from tests… (etc.).

6. Results/Findings (Conclusion, end results)

7. Discussion

8. Bibliography/ References

As this course is dedicated to understanding Social Scientific Research Methods, we’re going to focus on (wait for it…) social scientific research methods. Groundbreaking, right? But one of the ways that shakes out is that we’re going to be looking at “qualitative” and “quantitative” methods. Lucky for us, in the average SS communication research article, these are going to be communicated in the same section, and it’s going to be called METHOD.