Quantitative Methodology Analysis (Coursework Sample)

Quantitative Methodology Analysis
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Quantitative Methodology Analysis
Quantitative research, as opposed to qualitative research methods, entails the use of quantitative data to formulate statistical and empirical observations. Such research methods are important where there is data that requires efficient consideration to formulate an empirical conclusion on a particular topic, more so in cases where qualitative methods would not be as effective (Polit & Beck, 2008). This paper is going to make use of a research carried out by Joe Verghese et al in the medical journal The Journals of Gerontology to understand the processes within quantitative research.
The topic of their article is Quantitative Gait Markers and Incident Fall Risk in Older Adults, and the article carries out quantitative research on the risk of patient falls in relation to other gait markers such as stride length, speed and cadence. The main method of sampling for the test subjects used in the research is age since patient falls that are determined by gait markers are more prevalent in older adults. The method of sampling used in this instance is that of cluster sampling, where all the subjects were from a particular age set (over 70 years old). This method of sampling is appropriate to the research since it ensures that the essence of the research, which is checking the rate of falls in reference to gait in older generations, is adhered.
With a sample population of over 570 older adults and a mean average 80 years, the sample does reflect the necessary population to make a conclusive research. This sample size is appropriate in that it shall allow the researchers to get results that are more reliable from the wide-ranging number of samples. After research, the findings of this research would be more applicable to people above the age of 70 years, though it could also still apply to anyone above middle ages (50 years and above). There are limitations to this however, with the biggest being the fact that application below the threshold age of 70 would not be as applicable.
The research makes use of co-relational research design, more specifically the use of observational study. This form of design is appropriate for the research, mainly because it entails the use of a particular patient group that is observed while looking at various particular issues over a given time span. It also fulfills the set theoretical framework and hypothesis. The level of measurement of the main variables in this experiment is ordinal. This is because though there is no measure of the distance between the effects of each variable in relation to each other, there is a rank order of their individual degree of effect with relation to falls per gait marker.
Over the given time period, the research provides descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics provided for the research is the mean deviation over 20 months of study, which show that 226 or 38% of the total number of su...