Introduction

When you think about quantitative research, what are comes to your mind? Is it numbers? Is it statistical significance -- whatever that is? Or do you think about large sample sizes and complex mathematical formulas to understand people?

In practice, it's a combination of all those things. But one thing quantitative research doesn't have to be is scary. To highlight this point, only a few numbers are used in this chapter. There are, however, quirky illustrations and examples to make the ideas approachable.

In this chapter, you'll find a breakdown of quantitative research, where you might use it in your work, and some foundational concepts that you can build and evolve your knowledge around. There's more to learn about quantitative research, so there's a short list of additional topics that you might want to explore on your own time.

this chapter tries to give the foundational knowledge and enough to get you excited about continuing your journey towards becoming a better quantitative experience researcher.

Quantitative Research Ideas Not Covered Here

• Probability and distributions
• Experimental design
• Statistical modeling, predictions, or forecasting
• Log data analysis
• Metric(s) creation
• Tracking / longitudinal research

The ideas above are much more complex than what's covered here. Each of these ideas can be the focus of advanced academic programs or workshops. Explaining them all could easily be triple the length of this handbook. These ideas are also hard to apply properly without learning about the foundational ideas covered here. Your stakeholders will also struggle to understand the importance of these ideas if you can’t explain them in simple and relevant ways. Without adequate training and practice, the above ideas might feel inaccessible to you. But there is some good news.

All of the above ideas are built up from similar foundational ideas. Once you understand these ideas, you unlock the confidence to learn about the more complex, abstract side of quantitative research. This chapter tries to make these many of the foundational ideas easier to understand, recognize, and apply in your research.

Some of these ideas are complex, abstract, or opaque. But don’t let that discourage you. When you feel "afraid" or "not smart enough" for quantitative research, you incorrectly reinforce the belief that quantitative research is "scary." There’s not a researcher on this planet that was born understanding these ideas.

But with practice, intention, further reading, and an open mind, you'll be able to use the ideas of quantitative research effectively. The ideas covered in this chapter are listed in the concept diagram below, similar to the one shown in Chapter: Structuring Qualitative Research.

Let's get started diving into the powerful, seemingly confusing, and magical world of quantitative research. The first idea to understand is how numbers are used in quantitative research.