Designing Quantitative Research

Post an explanation of a threat to internal validity and a threat to external validity in quantitative research. Next, explain a strategy to mitigate each of these threats. Then, identify a potential ethical issue in quantitative research and explain how it might influence design decisions. Finally, explain what it means for a research topic to be amenable to scientific study using a quantitative approach.

Be sure to support your Main Issue Post and Response Post with reference to the week’s Learning Resources and other scholarly evidence in APA Style.

Required Readings

Babbie, E. (2017) Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Chapter 3, “The Ethics and Politics of Social Research”

Burkholder, G. J., Cox, K. A., & Crawford, L. M. (2016). The scholar-practitioner’s guide to research design. Baltimore, MD: Laureate Publishing.
Chapter 7, “Quality Considerations”

Document: Threats to Internal Validity (PDF)

Walden University: Center for Research Quality. (2015b). Research ethics & compliance: Application & general materials. Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/researchcenter/orec/application
Download the “Research Ethics Planning Worksheet” document.

Walden University: Center for Research Quality. (2015c). Research resources: Research planning & writing. Retrieved fromhttp://academicguides.waldenu.edu/researchcenter/resources/planning
Download the “Litmus Test” document.

Walden University. (2015a). How do I find an article that reports on research that uses a specific methodology? Retrieved from http://academicanswers.waldenu.edu/faq/72633

Walden University Writing Center. (2015). Common course assignments: Annotated bibliographies. Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/assignments/annotatedbibliog
Answer preview
In a quantitative research that has been conducted, the researcher is able to draw legitimate conclusions from the findings since the research was valid (Burkholder, et al., 2016). However, there are major threats which affect the validity of the research conducted which are the threat to internal validity and the threat to external validity. The threat to internal validity means the extent to which the findings that are generated are part of the functions of the variables which were methodically manipulated, measured, and examined in the research study. Some of the possible threats to internal validity are history effects and maturation like in the case of growth processes. In the case of history effects, the occurrences of events are likely to alter the outcomes of the study…
(650 words)

DESIGNING QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH