Both articles are very helpful in understanding of how the quantitative methods of research work, and, even more interesting to me, both discuss the topic of online education, which is becoming very popular and important nowadays.
“Mixed research and online learning: Strategies for improvement” by Lowenthal, P. R. & Leech, N. (2009)
The main question of this paper is how a low quality of research on online learning can be improved. This introduces the mixed research in Data Analysis, which is a new, multiple method of collecting data.
The purpose of study is exploratory, as researchers are trying to bring up the new method into actual usage, and explain its elements.
Basically, mixed research is a research strategy that combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to create a more valid way to perform a research. This may result in better ways of providing online-learning, which currently has a lot of disadvantages comparing to traditional way of learning, as the authors point out.
Speaking about qualitative analysis, it should be verified by comparative analysis with such methods as counting of the number of words, keywords, content, domain analysis, taxonomic and component analysis, social presence etc.
There are some tools, or collecting methods, that they discuss: research questions (both quantitative and qualitative), samples etc. There are also various lists of examples of how a researcher should perform the analysis. For example, the most interesting for me are Seven stages of the data analysis process: data reduction, data display, data transformation, data correlation, data consolidation, data comparison, and data integratio.
Authors say that mixed studies on the subject are difficult to perform, nevertheless, using both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis would be highly effective.
I agree that this way of research work can definitely increase the quality of research, and not only regarding the subject of online learning. In this particular case it would make the process of research highly productive. I think that this method is a good way to combine the best parts of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Still, sometimes it could be difficult to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data, and also the usage of multiple methods will make the research process longer, but its results will be more valuable.
“Emotional presence, learning and the online learning environment” by Cleveland-Innes, M. & Campbell P.
The main question of this paper is the presence of emotion in online learning.
The purpose of study is explanatory, as authors discuss if emotions influence on the process of online learning.
They use mixed methods of research: the quantitative data is collected from surveys and interviews (conference discussion transcripts), the qualitative data is taken from the questions in the survey (217 students of distance education programmes).
The conclusion is that emotion is a prominent experience in the online environment that may be distracting, but also may support ideas, be stimulating, if managed correctly. This is teachers’ responsibility: «Consideration of the appropriate response is needed [...] Instructors can model emotional response […] and teach how to bring emotion to consciousness and make use of the emotional state in a learning situation».
Researchers still left many questions for further discussions, like what is emotions influence on organization and direct instruction, or are where some specific emotions experienced during triggering events etc.
Nevertheless, they ended up with interesting and productive results, and, in my opinion, this goal was achieved due to the illustrative information received from the mixed methods of research.
