Theme 4: Quantitative research (before)

1. Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

The quantitative method that are used in the paper “Social Networking Sites: Their Users and Social Implications - A Longitudinal Study” is longitudinal survey. The paper has send out a survey three times (the years 2008, 2009 and 2010). The benefits of using surveys are that a lot of data can be found because one can have different kinds of questions (but not necessarily many questions) to get a lot empirical data and also that it is quite easy to get users to answer it (especially when it doesn’t require a lot of time). One of the limitations is that to be able to generalize according to the hypothesis, the data and the number of users answering the survey needs to be big.  

2. What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?

From reading the paper I learned that quantitative methods like using surveys is a good and effective way to get a lot of numbers and data. One can form a survey to get the data that is wanted to the research. A lot of analyzing can be done of all the data and easily pictured graphically. The problem is that it is difficult to generalize just by using surveys, like they did in the paper. I think a survey is a good method if it is used with other methods to complement the study. With a survey it is hard to guarantee that the answers are correct and reliable. On the other hand, in the paper they used a firm working with surveys professionally which seems that the surveys are of very high quality.

3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?

The main methodological problem of the study is that it has no qualitative results. The use of the method could be improved by complementing it with other methods to get even stronger and more findings to answer the hypothesis questions. Another thing was that the dropout rate (number of users answering the first survey but not the other two in the other years) was high. According to the paper this is normal and doesn’t affect the results and by comparing the data with a cross-data consistency check with another ongoing research, it makes the data more reliable.

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

The benefits of quantitative methods are that one can get a large number of data, quite easy method to reach a larger population and get statistics. The limitations are not always reliable, do not always suit all types of researches and does not include any deeper information.

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

The benefits of using qualitative methods are that one can get more detailed data and information from users and also get deeper in the subject. The limitations are that it is more difficult to get a large number of data from users which make it more difficult to generalize, it also requires good knowledge about the method to get right kind of data (for example how to interview etc.).