Theme 4: Quantitative research

Research paper: Women bloggers: Identity and conceptualization of sports

I have read the media technology research paper Women bloggers: Identity and conceptualization of sports which is published in the December 2013 issue of New media and society. The paper has an impact factor of 1.824. The title of this paper caught my attention since I myself was studying women in the blogosphere for my Bachelor thesis. Also, I am interested in both sports and feminism. The study explores the formation of self and the conceptualization of sports in the 'Sports Blog' directory of a special women’s blog network in the US. I was curious to investigate how the methodology was carried out and also to read the conclusions.

In this research paper there is only one quantitative method used, namely a 'quantitative content analysis'. This method is most commonly defined as an objective and systematic method for a quantitative analysis of manifest content. As opposed to qualitative textual analysis, which is subjective and interpretive, quantitative content analysis does not make any claims beyond what can be identified and counted in the text.

I believe that a quantitative content analysis method is used beneficially when to study a topic that in some way could be controversial, or if it easily affects your feelings. What I mean is that a qualitative content analysis is probably more subjective and interpretive, which may in some cases affect your conclusion, either consciously or unconsciously. For example as feminist scholars, as in this case, you have to be cognizant that your social locations may shape your research. I guess that is always the case, more or less. However, taking such aspects into account when designing the methodology of the study, you are able to increase the level of validity and reliability. Speaking of which, one thing that stuck on my mind was the fact that the study only uses one single method as a base for the discussion and conclusion made. During my years as a student I have always heard that, in most cases, it is recommended to apply methods in a mix. The so-called 'triangulation' is a technique that facilitates the validation of data which is received from more than one or two sources. I believe that is something that could have been approved in this study, in order to increase the level of validity and reliability. At least the they could have argued why not to use other methods than the 'quantitative content analysis'.

The main thing learned from reading this paper is how a quantitative content analysis could be designed. For the Bachelor thesis we carried out a quite extensive qualitative content analysis instead, which was more based on observation and interpretation. Back then it felt too complicated to collect quantitative content from many sources in a widespread blogosphere. Especially since blogs have a high personal mark and it feels difficult to 'transform' this kind of content to research data. After been reading this paper, I am amazed by the advanced tools for collecting quantitative data from personal content, which are often built-in, in the blog networks.

Research paper: Physical Activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection

The reason with this study is to investigate whether upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) could be related to physical activity and perceived stress, or not. There were 1509 participants in the study, aged 20-60 years. The method used is a web-based questionnaire to assess disease status and lifestyle. Also, it assesses the physical activity and inactivity as total MET-hours per day, as well as perceived stress by a 14-item Perceived Stress Scale. The conclusion made is that a high physical activity is associated with lower risk of contracting URTI, for both men and women. Additionally, the result showed that highly stressed people, predominantly men, appear to benefit more from physical activity than those with lower stress levels.

1. Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

Quantitative methods makes it easy to gather statistical evidence to test or prove a proposed hypothesis. A large amount of quantitative data can be gathered in a short time period and the results is most commonly easy to analyze. Using population-based quantitative methods you get pretty good sample of the population, from which answers clear and comprehensive tendencies can be identified. Since you often receive a large amount of statistical data from quantitative methods, these can also bring up new insights on the issue at question. On the other hand, a drawback with quantitative methods is that these does not primarily take into account complex and more detailed aspects that might be of interest in the study. Also, it is hard to verify if the respondents has misinterpreted questions in a questionnaire, as you probably not come into close contact with the respondents.

2. Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

Qualitative methods are beneficially used when to search answers or information about a narrow research question within a specific subject area. Advantageously, qualitative methods is used to investigate the findings from a quantitative method further, to verify that the statistical data is interpreted properly. The findings often provide a deeper understanding and insights into the research question that is investigated. A limitation with qualitative methods is that they are often time consuming and therefore limited to a smaller group of respondents. Consequently, results from qualitative methods cannot independently support conclusions in a general sense.