Quantitative Methods for Researchers Paul Cairns

Objectives  Need for write up  Structure of write-up 2

Why write up? 3

Formal structure  Title and abstract  Aims = lit review  Method  Results  Discussion 4

Literature  Defines the community  Importance/interest  Implicit standard  Implicit style QUAN, Paul Cairns

Method section  Aim and hypothesis  Participants  Variables  Design  Materials  Procedure 6

Matching Exercise  Aim and hypothesis  Participants  Variables  Design  Materials  Procedure Construct Internal External Ecological 7

Results  Report descriptives  Report all tests – not just the “interesting” ones  Don’t do anything else 8

Discussion  Interpreting results  Honest criticism  Design => Results – Even if not the result you wanted!  Further work 9

Three writing tools  RQ  Fantasy abstract  Method 10

Write now!  Known structures  What will sig show?  Is it valid?  Forces a dialogue – With self or supervisor 11

Experiments as evidence  If – X has really changed – Y has been properly measured – Nothing else has changed – The result was significant  Then – Evidence that X causes Y 12

Value?  Modest but cumulative  One severe test  Isolation of phenomena  Strong pillars 13

Not black and white  Experiments are not proof – Validity – Assumptions  Experiments have a frame – Eg speed of gravity 14

Health warnings  Craft skill  Simpler is better – Doing it – Interpreting it – Communicating it  Experiments as evidence  Software packages are deceptively easy 15

Q & A  Any question about any aspect  Very general or very specific  Any research method! 16

Useful Reading  Cairns, Cox, Research Methods for HCI: chaps 6  Rowntree, Statistics Without Tears  Howell, Fundamental Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences, 6 th edn.  Abelson, Statistics as Principled Argument  Silver, The Signal and the Noise 17