Quantitative Research in the Adult Education
The article intends to explore more about the nature of quantitative research in adult education. The article explicitly discusses the research methodology, methods, and how it is integral to comprehend the leading framework in which the education research is currently done and how the latest insights to the current knowledge base are accessed. This field in most cases is dominated by qualitative research. Most researchers tend to use qualitative methodology to explore the education system because of them, capturing the experience of adult learners is more important (Boeren, 2018). Therefore, based on the experience point of view researchers applies a qualitative method of research. The author discusses the paradigm of quantitative research as the means of bringing out what people think and research about the world and how it is typically impacted by how the individual chooses the research approaches. For instance, the positivist works by assuming that the knowledge can be accessed in objective, and value freeway through figures as well as facts. According to the article, qualitative research methods refers to the data which is collected through the help of predetermined instrument including questionnaires and experiment.
Qualitative research approaches are characterized by the fact that the data is subjected to statistical analysis. The article also reviews three quantitative journals on education literature and it is clear that most of them are founded on questionnaire studies and not even experiments. According to Cohen et al. (2011), “Questions can be open, leaving room to the respondent to formulate his or her answer, but quite often, specific answering options will be formulated, for example, through checklists, Likert-type scales, drop-down lists, or rating exercises” (Boeren, 2018). Conclusively, the article focuses on how the quantitative research method has been neglected in educational studies.
Reference
Boeren, E. (2018). The methodological underdog: A review of quantitative research in the key adult education journals. Adult Education Quarterly, 68(1), 63-79.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0741713617739347