Article Overview
Research is an integral part of every science, and consequently of education as such. In this very paper, I will focus on the article by Robert F. Cavanagh and Peter S. Reynolds titled Ensuring Quality of Method in Quantitative Educational Research so that to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the quantitative approach to educational research methods as widely disputed and controversial. Moreover, I will express my own ideas on the subject matter of the article, combine them with the ideas by other researchers and conclude it all into a comprehensive article critique.
Thus, the major points of the article under consideration consist in the discussion of the dispute that takes place among scholars as for the value and objectivity of the quantitative research in education. The major question of the article can be thus formulated as follows: “why can quantitative methods be criticised as narrow?” (Cavanagh, R. & Reynolds, P., p. 3). In more detail, the authors of the article ponder on the features that quantitative research methods have or lack compared to the widely praised qualitative methods in education. Among them, Cavanagh and Reynolds single out such weak points of the quantitative method as the alleged lack of comprehensiveness, subsequent absence of ontological, epistemological and methodological integrity resulting in the research findings that lack accuracy, and its being too much focused on figures while education as a humanity demands more philosophical approach seeking for causes of certain processes. Further on, the authors touch upon the necessity of comprehensive overview of data in research and examine the quantitative research methods as tools to ensure objective research findings free from subjectivity and personal views of researchers. I think that the topic of the article is rather relevant for today’s education, and the ideas expressed by the authors of then article can be viewed as grounded and adequate.
Self-Reflection of the Critique
However, the article has set certain questions when I read it and considered data that its authors presented. Mostly, these questions are directed at the same point as the research by Cavanagh and Reynolds. In other words, I doubt as for the adequacy of the problem on the whole. Qualitative methods of research have long been viewed as the most comprehensive, but this has been a collective point of view of certain scholars who, in addition, pursued different aim. According to Hara (1995), “the quantitative research approach endlessly pursues facts while the qualitative research approach recognizes that the researcher’s viewpoint is central”. Moreover, the quantitative method is the way to obtain statistical data while qualitative one aims at interpretation of data from the personal viewpoint of the researcher. Further on, the methods and aims of the quantitative research are applicable to the educational sphere and were adopted by it from natural sciences, while it was obvious for scholars that “to investigate and to make explicit definitions of facts were of primary importance in doing education research.” (Hara, p. 351)
Thus, if the quantitative research is applicable for educational purposes and possesses the methodology that can be efficient in education, why not use it? This question is one of the central for those who consider the alleged controversy of quantitative method of research as compared to the qualitative one. One of the practical ways to prove the significance of this point is that, according to Fashola (2004), “research has found that a passing grade in one school may be a failing grade in another, depending on several factors, including the socioeconomic status of the student, the location of the school, and the demographic characteristics of the school’s students”. Finding this out would be rather problematic for the qualitative research as it would focus on other aspects of educational development in those schools, while only concentration on figures and statistics allowed the researchers to identify the problem and pass it to qualitative research for finding reasons and consequences.
Thus, I think that the arguments presented by the authors of the article under consideration are rather convincing. The point of quantitative research opponents that it lacks the integrity of ontology, epistemology and methodology for research procedure is defeated by specific evidence that quantitative research ontology is a certain hypothesis which can and needs to be either affirmed or rejected by the research, epistemology is represented by a set of questions that quantitative researchers have to answer while considering their ontology, and methodologies are numerous including statistical data gathering, survey analysis, etc. So, it is obvious that criticism of the quantitative method of research is rather weak and poorly grounded.
Conclusion
Consequently, to conclude it is necessary to state that the article considered in this paper is a rather relevant source of information on the support of quantitative method of research in education. This article can be useful for education researchers by its consideration of all the strong and weal points of quantitative research and its comparison to the qualitative method. Thus, a researcher is free to consider all the pros and cons of both methods and make his or her choice. Nevertheless, further research can be necessary in this sphere that might consist in selecting topics for simultaneous qualitative and quantitative research and comparing their results in respect of accuracy, objectivity and public scholarly use.
References
- Cavanagh, R. & Reynolds, P. (2005). Ensuring Quality of Method in Quantitative Educational Research. Australian Association for Research in Education 2005 Focus Conference – Quality in Education Research: Cairns. 1 – 15.
- Fashola, O. S. (2004). Being an Informed Consumer of Quantitative Educational Research. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(7), 532.
- Hara, K. (1995). Quantitative and Qualitative Research Approaches in Education. Education, 115(3), 351+.