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Quantitative Research in Communication

• Mike Allen - University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA
• Scott Titsworth - Ohio University, USA
• Stephen K. Hunt - Illinois State University, USA
• Description

Written for communication students, Quantitative Research in Communication provides practical, user-friendly coverage of how to use statistics, how to interpret SPSS printouts, how to write results, and how to assess whether the assumptions of various procedures have been met. Providing a strong conceptual orientation to techniques and procedures that range from the "moderately basic" to "highly advanced," the book provides practical tips and suggestions for quantitative communication scholars of all experience levels. In addition to important foundational information, each chapter that covers a specific statistical procedure includes suggestions for interpreting, explaining, and presenting results; realistic examples of how the procedure can be used to answer substantive questions in communication; sample SPSS printouts; and a detailed summary of a published communication journal article using that procedure.

· Engaged Research application boxes stimulate thought and discussion, illustrating how particular research methods can be used to answer very practical, civic-minded questions.

· Realistic examples at the beginning of each chapter show how the chapter's procedure could be used to answer a substantive research question.

· Examples and application activities geared toward the emerging trend of service learning encourage students to do projects oriented toward their community or campus.

· Summaries of journal articles demonstrate how to write statistical results in APA style and illustrate how real researchers use statistical procedures in a wide variety of contexts, such as tsunami warnings, date requests, and anti-drug public service announcements.

· How to Decipher Figures show students how to "read" the statistical shorthand presented in the quantitative results of an article and also, by implication, show them how to write up results .

Quantitative Research in Communication is ideal for courses in Quantitative Methods in Communication, Statistical Methods in Communication, Advanced Research Methods (undergraduate), and Introduction to Research Methods (Graduate) in departments of communication, educational psychology, psychology, and mass communication.

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This is an excellent book. My students love it.

I particularly like the chapter on meta-analysis as this is one topic that most of the books on survey that I have been using do not discuss.

Guide to Communication Research Methodologies: Quantitative, Qualitative and Rhetorical Research

Overview of Communication

Communication research methods, quantitative research, qualitative research, rhetorical research, mixed methodology.

Students interested in earning a graduate degree in communication should have at least some interest in understanding communication theories and/or conducting communication research. As students advance from undergraduate to graduate programs, an interesting change takes place — the student is no longer just a repository for knowledge. Rather, the student is expected to learn while also creating knowledge. This new knowledge is largely generated through the development and completion of research in communication studies. Before exploring the different methodologies used to conduct communication research, it is important to have a foundational understanding of the field of communication.

Defining communication is much harder than it sounds. Indeed, scholars have argued about the topic for years, typically differing on the following topics:

• Breadth : How many behaviors and actions should or should not be considered communication.
• Intentionality : Whether the definition includes an intention to communicate.
• Success : Whether someone was able to effectively communicate a message, or merely attempted to without it being received or understood.

However, most definitions discuss five main components, which include: sender, receiver, context/environment, medium, and message. Broadly speaking, communication research examines these components, asking questions about each of them and seeking to answer those questions.

As students seek to answer their own questions, they follow an approach similar to most other researchers. This approach proceeds in five steps: conceptualize, plan and design, implement a methodology, analyze and interpret, reconceptualize.

• Conceptualize : In the conceptualization process, students develop their area of interest and determine if their specific questions and hypotheses are worth investigating. If the research has already been completed, or there is no practical reason to research the topic, students may need to find a different research topic.
• Plan and Design : During planning and design students will select their methods of evaluation and decide how they plan to define their variables in a measurable way.
• Implement a Methodology : When implementing a methodology, students collect the data and information they require. They may, for example, have decided to conduct a survey study. This is the step when they would use their survey to collect data. If students chose to conduct a rhetorical criticism, this is when they would analyze their text.
• Analyze and Interpret : As students analyze and interpret their data or evidence, they transform the raw findings into meaningful insights. If they chose to conduct interviews, this would be the point in the process where they would evaluate the results of the interviews to find meaning as it relates to the communication phenomena of interest.
• Reconceptualize : During reconceptualization, students ask how their findings speak to a larger body of research — studies related to theirs that have already been completed and research they should execute in the future to continue answering new questions.

This final step is crucial, and speaks to an important tenet of communication research: All research contributes to a better overall understanding of communication and moves the field forward by enabling the development of new theories.

In the field of communication, there are three main research methodologies: quantitative, qualitative, and rhetorical. As communication students progress in their careers, they will likely find themselves using one of these far more often than the others.

Quantitative research seeks to establish knowledge through the use of numbers and measurement. Within the overarching area of quantitative research, there are a variety of different methodologies. The most commonly used methodologies are experiments, surveys, content analysis, and meta-analysis. To better understand these research methods, you can explore the following examples:

Experiments : Experiments are an empirical form of research that enable the researcher to study communication in a controlled environment. For example, a researcher might know that there are typical responses people use when they are interrupted during a conversation. However, it might be unknown as to how frequency of interruption provokes those different responses (e.g., do communicators use different responses when interrupted once every 10 minutes versus once per minute?). An experiment would allow a researcher to create these two environments to test a hypothesis or answer a specific research question. As you can imagine, it would be very time consuming — and probably impossible — to view this and measure it in the real world. For that reason, an experiment would be perfect for this research inquiry.

Surveys : Surveys are often used to collect information from large groups of people using scales that have been tested for validity and reliability. A researcher might be curious about how a supervisor sharing personal information with his or her subordinate affects way the subordinate perceives his or her supervisor. The researcher could create a survey where respondents answer questions about a) the information their supervisors self-disclose and b) their perceptions of their supervisors. The data collected about these two variables could offer interesting insights about this communication. As you would guess, an experiment would not work in this case because the researcher needs to assess a real relationship and they need insight into the mind of the respondent.

Content Analysis : Content analysis is used to count the number of occurrences of a phenomenon within a source of media (e.g., books, magazines, commercials, movies, etc.). For example, a researcher might be interested in finding out if people of certain races are underrepresented on television. They might explore this area of research by counting the number of times people of different races appear in prime time television and comparing that to the actual proportions in society.

Meta-Analysis : In this technique, a researcher takes a collection of quantitative studies and analyzes the data as a whole to get a better understanding of a communication phenomenon. For example, a researcher might be curious about how video games affect aggression. This researcher might find that many studies have been done on the topic, sometimes with conflicting results. In their meta-analysis, they could analyze the existing statistics as a whole to get a better understanding of the relationship between the two variables.

Qualitative research is interested in exploring subjects’ perceptions and understandings as they relate to communication. Imagine two researchers who want to understand student perceptions of the basic communication course at a university. The first researcher, a quantitative researcher, might measure absences to understand student perception. The second researcher, a qualitative researcher, might interview students to find out what they like and dislike about a course. The former is based on hard numbers, while the latter is based on human experience and perception.

Qualitative researchers employ a variety of different methodologies. Some of the most popular are interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. To better understand these research methods, you can explore the following examples:

Interviews : This typically consists of a researcher having a discussion with a participant based on questions developed by the researcher. For example, a researcher might be interested in how parents exert power over the lives of their children while the children are away at college. The researcher could spend time having conversations with college students about this topic, transcribe the conversations and then seek to find themes across the different discussions.

Focus Groups : A researcher using this method gathers a group of people with intimate knowledge of a communication phenomenon. For example, if a researcher wanted to understand the experience of couples who are childless by choice, he or she might choose to run a series of focus groups. This format is helpful because it allows participants to build on one another’s experiences, remembering information they may otherwise have forgotten. Focus groups also tend to produce useful information at a higher rate than interviews. That said, some issues are too sensitive for focus groups and lend themselves better to interviews.

Participant Observation : As the name indicates, this method involves the researcher watching participants in their natural environment. In some cases, the participants may not know they are being studied, as the researcher fully immerses his or herself as a member of the environment. To illustrate participant observation, imagine a researcher curious about how humor is used in healthcare. This researcher might immerse his or herself in a long-term care facility to observe how humor is used by healthcare workers interacting with patients.

Rhetorical research (or rhetorical criticism) is a form of textual analysis wherein the researcher systematically analyzes, interprets, and critiques the persuasive power of messages within a text. This takes on many forms, but all of them involve similar steps: selecting a text, choosing a rhetorical method, analyzing the text, and writing the criticism.

To illustrate, a researcher could be interested in how mass media portrays “good degrees” to prospective college students. To understand this communication, a rhetorical researcher could take 30 articles on the topic from the last year and write a rhetorical essay about the criteria used and the core message argued by the media.

Likewise, a researcher could be interested in how women in management roles are portrayed in television. They could select a group of popular shows and analyze that as the text. This might result in a rhetorical essay about the behaviors displayed by these women and what the text says about women in management roles.

As a final example, one might be interested in how persuasion is used by the president during the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. A researcher could select several recent presidents and write a rhetorical essay about their speeches and how they employed persuasion during their delivery.

Taking a mixed methods approach results in a research study that uses two or more techniques discussed above. Often, researchers will pair two methods together in the same study examining the same phenomenon. Other times, researchers will use qualitative methods to develop quantitative research, such as a researcher who uses a focus group to discuss the validity of a survey before it is finalized.

The benefit of mixed methods is that it offers a richer picture of a communication phenomenon by gathering data and information in multiple ways. If we explore some of the earlier examples, we can see how mixed methods might result in a better understanding of the communication being studied.

Example 1 : In surveys, we discussed a researcher interested in understanding how a supervisor sharing personal information with his or her subordinate affects the way the subordinate perceives his or her supervisor. While a survey could give us some insight into this communication, we could also add interviews with subordinates. Exploring their experiences intimately could give us a better understanding of how they navigate self-disclosure in a relationship based on power differences.

Example 2 : In content analysis, we discussed measuring representation of different races during prime time television. While we can count the appearances of members of different races and compare that to the composition of the general population, that doesn’t tell us anything about their portrayal. Adding rhetorical criticism, we could talk about how underrepresented groups are portrayed in either a positive or negative light, supporting or defying commonly held stereotypes.

Example 3 : In interviews, we saw a researcher who explored how power could be exerted by parents over their college-age children who are away at school. After determining the tactics used by parents, this interview study could have a phase two. In this phase, the researcher could develop scales to measure each tactic and then use those scales to understand how the tactics affect other communication constructs. One could argue, for example, that student anxiety would increase as a parent exerts greater power over that student. A researcher could conduct a hierarchical regression to see how each power tactic effects the levels of stress experienced by a student.

As you can see, each methodology has its own merits, and they often work well together. As students advance in their study of communication, it is worthwhile to learn various research methods. This allows them to study their interests in greater depth and breadth. Ultimately, they will be able to assemble stronger research studies and answer their questions about communication more effectively.

Note : For more information about research in the field of communication, check out our Guide to Communication Research and Scholarship .

Approaches to Research on L2 Oral Communication

• First Online: 10 November 2020

Cite this chapter

• Alireza Jamshidnejad 2 ,
• Reza Falahati 3 &
• Etske Ooijevaar 4  

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This chapter first presents the three main approaches in studying L2 oral communication and speaking: qualitative, quantitative and mixed. It shows how the main trends in the field have shifted from a quantitative into a qualitative approach and more recently to mixed approaches. Next, the techniques used for collecting data in these different types of research are presented. The subsequent section of this chapter discusses the production and perception aspects of research on pronunciation, followed by a presentation of innovative approaches to research on pronunciation. This includes developing models which are representative of an authentic and ‘international’ accent as well as using ultrasound, as a new channel for signals, for teaching pronunciation. The concluding section of this chapter presents tasks and techniques for eliciting oral data.

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See Creswell, Clark, Gutmann, and Hanson ( 2003 ) for other terms used to refer to this type of research.

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A quantitative survey of intern's knowledge of communication skills: an Iranian exploration

• Mohsen Tavakol 1 ,
• Sima Torabi 2 ,
• Owen D Lyne 3 &
• Ali A Zeinaloo 4  

BMC Medical Education volume  5 , Article number:  6 ( 2005 ) Cite this article

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It is a high priority that health care providers have effective communication skills. It has been well documented that the doctor-patient relationship is central to the delivery of high quality medical care, and it has been shown to affect patient satisfaction, to decrease the use of pain killers, to shorten hospital stays, to improve recovery from surgery and a variety of other biological, psychological and social outcomes. This study sought to quantify the current knowledge of interns in Iran about communication skills.

A cross-sectional study using a self-report questionnaire was conducted among interns. Data analysis was based on 223 questionnaires. The internal consistency of the items was 0.8979.

Overall, knowledge levels were unsatisfactory. Results indicated that interns had a limited knowledge of communication skills, including identification of communication skills. In addition, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of interns on breaking bad news and sex education. The confidence of males about their communication skills was significantly higher than for females. Analysis of the total scores by age and sex showed that there was a statistically significant main effect for sex and the interaction with age was statistically significant. Free response comments of the interns are also discussed.

Conclusions

It is argued that there is a real need for integrating a communication skills course, which is linked to the various different ethnic and religious backgrounds of interns, into Iranian medical curricula. Some recommendations are made and the limitations of the study are discussed.

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The expectations of the public have been dramatically increased and the majority of them are familiar with their rights in the health care system. As a consequence, it is a high priority that health care providers have effective communication skills. It has been well documented that the doctor-patient relationship is central to the delivery of high quality medical care. It has been shown to affect patient satisfaction, to decrease the use of pain killers, to shorten hospital stays, to improve recovery from surgery and a variety of other biological, psychological and social outcomes [ 1 – 4 ]. Lack of knowledge of communication skills, or an inability to use them effectively, can be distressing and is potentially hazardous for patients. It may also be a cause of stress for medical students arriving on the ward for the first time [ 5 ]. There is a large body of evidence indicating the importance of students' knowledge of communication skills and [ 6 , 7 ] how behaviours learned from communication skills training transfer into the clinical setting and such training is known to have long term effects on students behaviour [ 8 – 11 ].

However, little is known about the importance of communication skills in the practice and training of doctors in Iran, where the culture differs greatly from that of the West. Sensitivity to religious matters is particularly important in Iranian doctor-patient relationships where Islam is more than a religion; it is a way of life. It controls politics, local laws, behaviour and many other aspects of daily life. It gives guidance in all spheres of human activity from birth to death. Therefore doctors coming into contact with religious patients need to be aware that there are numerous potential barriers to good communication [ 12 ].

A major criticism of current medical training in Iran is that communication skills have not been embedded in the curriculum of Iranian medical students, despite the richness and variety of evidence from elsewhere concerning the importance of communication skills. Concerns over poor doctor-patient communication amongst Iranian doctors led to an exploration of the current situation [ 13 ]. In this paper we investigate the knowledge level of interns about communication skills to gain a clearer picture of some challenges relating to health care promotion, especially patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment. Two questions guided the study: (a) How do interns assess their knowledge about communication skills? (b) Is there a significant difference between the level of knowledge among male and female interns?

A quantitative survey was performed at Tehran University of Medical Science (TUMS). A cross-sectional study was conducted using a questionnaire administered to 235 interns. Anonymity was maintained throughout. The subjects received the self-administered questionnaire with a covering letter explaining the project and the subject's rights. 12 subjects did not return the questionnaire and an additional 7 subjects did not give their age and one person did not give his/her sex. Therefore data analysis was based on 223 questionnaires, but covariate-based analysis on fewer. The subjects were asked to complete the questionnaire without referring to source books.

The questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first section asked students to give personal details including the demographic items age and gender (summarised in Table 1 ). The second section is related to the educational items: subjects studied or attended in a specific course about communication skills (Table 2 ). The third section asked students to rate their knowledge of communication skills and, if they rated themselves higher than 5, discuss the item briefly in the space provided in order to assess their real knowledge with regard to that communication skill. In addition, they were encouraged to provide additional written comments on the questionnaire. The communication skills knowledge scale (CSKS) developed here consists of 10 items about communication skills. Each item is measured on a 10-point scale, ranging from 1 (low) to 10 (high).

The choice of items was based on the communication skills an intern will need. All items were verified and subjected to content validation by three major experts in communication skills. These experts were given copies of the CSKS and the purpose and objectives of the study. They then evaluated the CSKS on an individual basis. Comparisons were made between these evaluations and the authors then made some minor changes within the CSKS. The CSKS had a high internal consistency ( Cronbach alpha = 0.8979).

The validity of the CSKS can only be examined through logical rather than empirical means. Since the CSKS was not compared to a standardised test, it was impossible to obtain a numerical estimate of the validity of the test. However, based on logical means, i.e., a respectable Cronbach alpha and high inter-rater agreements on each item, the authors believe that the test is valid. The questions and responses have been translated from Persian into English for this paper.

The potential score range from the 10-item CSKS (by summing all 10 item scores) is 10 to 100, with 10 indicating low knowledge. Analysis of the total scores produced a mean score of 51.30 [95 per cent confidence interval (CI) 49.05–53.55]. The subjects' performance on the CSKS suggests a knowledge deficit in communication skills. The mean scores for males and females were respectively 53.6 and 48.2 (P = 0.02). The vast majority of interns (78.1%) had not studied a paper on communication skills. When asked whether they had formally attended communication skills courses, 91.4% of interns reported "no". Of the few interns who reported "yes", these interns specified courses such as CPR, injections and semiology (Table 3 ), which are not formal communication skills courses.

The analysis of the scores by topic is shown in table 4 . The possible range of scores for each item was 1 to 10. Mean scores for topics ranged from 2.8 to 6.1. Interns were most confident on "giving and receiving information", and the least confident on "sex education".

A two-way between-groups analysis was conducted to explore the impact of sex and age on levels of knowledge, as measured by the CSKS. Subjects were divided into two groups according to their age (less than 25 years, or 25 years and above). There was a statistically significant main effect for sex [F (1, 212) = 4.90, p = 0.02] and the interaction effect [F (1, 212) = 4.06, p = 0.04) did reach statistical significance. However the effect size was small (eta squared = 0.02). The young male interns were more confident than average, while the young female interns were less confident.

Free responses included the following comments:

' Nobody has trained us about communication skills. Our knowledge in respect of communication skills is very poor. Your items show that we are very far behind other countries. Our universities are not as advanced as other universities' .

'I feel we are not familiar with the ABC of communication skills' .

'A good guide to communication skills needed' .

'I feel communication skills would be an excellent course since it gives us an idea of how we can handle bad news' .

'Attending doctors are not totally familiar with the aims and use of communication skills in the clinical setting' .

'All our courses only focus on biological issues rather than psychosocial issues'

Limitations

There were a number of limitations to this study.

The CSKS has not been normed for a population of interns.

Criterion-related validity of the CSKS was not determined, although content validity was established on the instrument.

Since it is a self-assessed questionnaire, these may be problems with bias, such as prestige bias.

The very high response rate (95%) of this questionnaire may have reflected general interest, or may have resulted from the advantages of self-assessment which itself may improve performance. The results on the CSKS show that basic knowledge of interns in Iran about communication skills is limited. Researchers have reported similar findings in other countries which reveal a deficit in the knowledge of doctors about communication skills [ 14 ]. The importance of communication skills has long been acknowledged in general practice training [ 15 ] and the need to teach communication skills formally, as part of British undergraduate medical education, has also been recognised [ 16 ]. In Iran, interns' knowledge deficiency may be attributed to the fact that interns have never been trained to consult in the general practice setting, and their skills are limited to making value judgements, often using the only available criterion, comparison with their own style [ 13 ]. This approach to a patient is not cost effective and may lead to negative health outcomes such as patient dissatisfaction, poor adherence to treatment and medical errors [ 17 ]. A few students reported their attendance at courses such as EBM, semiology, skills lab or CPR, which have no relation with communication skills training. This indicates that students are not familiar with the tasks of communication skills [ 18 ].

The vast majority of research studies have been conducted on the outcome of communication skills in the practice and training of doctors in western countries. Even here, despite doctors trained in communication skills and the advocacy of the use of a patient-oriented approach, some evidence suggests that there are difficulties in practice [ 19 , 20 ]. However, research has demonstrated that communication skills training intervention using behavioural, cognitive and affective domains can increase not only potentially beneficial and effective interviewing styles, but also alter attitudes and confer other benefits [ 9 , 21 ].

The results of the study show that there were significant differences between males and females with regard to their reported knowledge of the main communication skills. Women were less confident of their skills. The deficit may partly be an artefact of an inadvertent prestige bias of the male students. The deficit is particularly notable in sex education. There are three possible explanations for this. Firstly, in general, Iranian female interns are very shy to ask patients about sexual issues. Therefore they may feel that sex education skills have no implications for their practice and hence pay less attention to sex education training. Secondly, it may be a systematic error in female respondents, i.e. they may be shy to discuss their knowledge about sex education skills rather than lack knowledge. Thirdly, in the past, sex education was regarded as a taboo in Iran and was not available in schools, especially for girls [ 22 ]. This perhaps acts as an inhibitory factor on the basic knowledge of sex education. Within this context, there is no evidence that shows similar results for gender difference on the knowledge of sex education in the practice and training of doctors.

The results on the CSKS suggest that there are areas of weakness in the communication skills confidence of interns, particularly in breaking bad news. While it is well recognised that delivering bad news is a difficult task that requires skills and sensitivity [ 23 ], both female interns and male interns reported that their confidence in breaking bad news is low, especially the female interns. While the interns commented on the need to improve medical students' communication skills, it seems that guidelines on delivering bad news to patients and patients' family members have not been seriously taken into consideration in the practice and training of doctors in Iran. This could be due to interns possessing deep fears regarding delivering bad news to patients' family members, or because they are unaware of the general guidelines about delivering bad news [ 24 ]. Three studies which have attempted to address residents' perception of delivering bad news indicate that residents had experienced discomfort with psychosocial issues related to the conveyance of bad news, such as personal fears and different perceptions of bad news [ 25 – 27 ].

There is a significant difference between the mean score of the interns on breaking bad news. The female interns have reported lower confidence than the male interns. The deficit could be an inadvertent prestige bias of the male students. However, to our knowledge, there is no evidence that underpin such finding. Although Orlander et al's work [ 28 ] demonstrated there were no significant differences between males and females with regard to the type of bad news, residents' knowledge with regard to breaking bad news was not reported by the authors. Therefore, some empirical research is essential.

Given the poor levels of confidence about communication skills, particularly sex education skills, revealed in this study, it is concluded that educational programmes are necessary. In sex education skills training, given the complex interplay of cultural and religious beliefs in Iran, particular attention must be paid to multicultural and religious issues. Therefore, further work is needed on gender education and stereotypes in sex education; learning styles; the 'hidden curriculum'; and how far medical schools make organisational and administrative arrangements on the basis of gender and the implication for female and male interns.

The enthusiastic response to the questionnaires may suggest that medicine is accepting the need for developing communication skills within the medical curriculum. Medical education in Iran must respond to this challenge.

Finally, our findings may be somewhat limited in generalisability because they are derived from only one medical school in Iran. Self-assessment data may suffer from biases such as prestige bias. Despite these caveats, the authors believe the data to be an accurate reflection of current practice in Iran, based on the Iranian authors training experiences, and consistency with previous accounts.

Whilst the approach to this research has been shaped by a government-recognised health need, the authors recognise the need for, and welcome, further examination of these findings from multiple perspectives, especially with regards to ethnicity and social issues. Since not enough attention has been focused on individuals as makers of health as a service rather than customers of health care services, it is strongly recommended, therefore, that medical students be trained in the context of psychosocial issues that may influence health behaviour, as has been indicated by one of the participants. It is particularly important that this type of approach be incorporated into the curricula of medical training. This may assist in transferring from the disease-oriented to the patient-oriented approach and ultimately lead to patients understanding more and taking greater responsibility for their own health.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Tehran University of Medical science, Centre for Medical Education for their support of this study. Thanks also to the two reviewers whose comments allowed us to improve on our previous draft.

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School of Education, Nottingham University, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, UK

Mohsen Tavakol

Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, Institute for research and planning in higher education, Iran

Sima Torabi

Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Kent, UK

Owen D Lyne

Educational Development Centre, Tehran University of Medical Science, Iran

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The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors' contributions

MT and ST carried out the conception, design, initial analysis and interpretation of the data. MT drafted the paper. ODL was involved in revising the draft critically, revising the statistical analysis and gave final approval of the version to be published. AAZ contributed to the collection of data and the reviewing of the manuscript.

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Tavakol, M., Torabi, S., Lyne, O.D. et al. A quantitative survey of intern's knowledge of communication skills: an Iranian exploration. BMC Med Educ 5 , 6 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-5-6

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-5-6

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Novel approaches to communication skills development: The untapped potential of qualitative research immersion

Amy s. porter.

a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA

Cameka Woods

Erica c. kaye, associated data.

Participation in qualitative research, particularly analysis of recorded medical dialogue, offers real-time, longitudinal immersion that can strengthen clinical trainee communication skills. The study objective was to explore how qualitative research participation impacts clinical trainees’ self-perceived communication skills development and practice.

In this study, a 17-member multidisciplinary working group of child life specialists, advanced practice providers, undergraduate/medical students, residents, fellows, attending physicians, social scientists, and career researchers with recent qualitative and communication research experience assembled to discuss this topic using a structured discussion guide. Content analysis was used to identify concepts and themes.

Three key themes characterizing the impact of qualitative research participation on aspiring clinicians’ communication skills development and practice arose – the 3Cs: (1) C onnection, therapeutic alliance, and accompaniment; (2) C larity and prognostic communication; (3) C ompassion, empathy, and understanding. Participants emphasized that qualitative research learning improved their understanding of patient/family lived experiences, preparing them for future clinical encounters, strengthening their emotional intelligence, and promoting self-care, resilience, and professional affirmation.

Conclusions

Immersion in clinical communication through participation in qualitative research is an under-utilized resource for supporting clinical trainees in communication skills development.

The process of collaborative knowledge production through the collective exploration of an a priori question related to group members’ collective experiences is methodologically innovative. Further, re-thinking qualitative research participation as an underutilized educational opportunity is pedagogically novel, and leaders in medical education and qualitative research should collaborate to realize the potential of this teaching tool.

• • Qualitative research participation offers immersion in clinical communication.
• • Participation impact characterized by the 3 C’s: 1) Connection, 2) Clarity, 3) Compassion.
• • This is an under-utilized medical education resource for communication skills development.
• • Medical education and qualitative research leaders should collaborate.

1. Introduction

Communication training for clinical trainees often involves single timepoint simulation as a “gold standard” for practicing navigation of challenging conversations [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] ]. Due to time, staffing, and resource constraints, medical educators face challenges realizing high volume of real-time communication learning opportunities [ 1 ]. Clinicians-in-training are exposed infrequently and inconsistently to in-depth, communication-heavy encounters between clinicians and patients and their families during difficult moments in the illness course [ 5 , 13 , 14 ]. As a result, trainees lack robust opportunities to witness communication and consider which modeled approaches they want to integrate into their own communication toolboxes. Further, depending on supervisory ratios, trainees may not have sufficient opportunities to observe clinicians with a range of emotional dexterity skills to learn and reflect on how (or how not) to communicate during challenging medical encounters.

Healthcare communication science researchers have amassed large repositories of recorded medical dialogue to answer questions about best practices for communication between patients, families, and healthcare professionals; however, little precedent exists for collaboration between communication researchers and medical education leaders to optimize use of this under-utilized resource to offer learners opportunities for developing communication skills through participation in communication research. Existing literature explores how guided reflection activities such as “The Healer’s Art” and other self-contemplative didactics positively impact trainees’ communication skills, empathy, self-awareness, and overall clinical practice [ [15] , [16] , [17] ], yet the potential educational value and impact of qualitative research experiences on trainees’ learning and communication skills remains understudied and poorly understood.

To address this knowledge gap, we convened a multidisciplinary working group of students, clinicians, and researchers to consider the question: “How does engaging in qualitative communication research (i.e., listening to audio recordings and/or reading transcripts of recorded clinical encounters) impact trainees as professionals (both clinicians and researchers) and as individuals holistically?” The Qu alitative research as E ducation for S tudents and clinicians-in- Tr aining (QUEST) working group comprised individuals affiliated with a communication research lab within an academic institution who each had recent experiences participating in qualitative research on topics related to communication. The working group examined whether engaging in qualitative research involving patients and families could influence the way students and clinicians-in-training learn and practice communication. In this article, we summarize findings from the QUEST working group and propose immersion in qualitative research datasets as an innovative alternative or complement to standardized simulated communication skills training.

In this study, we used an adaptation of autoethnography to bring together a team of authors with common experiences related to qualitative research participation, collectively share our perceptions and generate reflective data about our experiences with qualitative research, and collaborate with one another to analyze the data and present our insights. In traditional autoethnographic methods, an individual uses a reliable process to generate data from their own experience, observations, and reflections and then reflects on and synthesizes these data to inform a larger context [ 18 ]. Koopman et al describes autoethnography as the ultimate form of reflexivity, a mechanism by which to explore personal perceptions, values, and beliefs through the lens of lived experience, culture, and self-other interactions [ 19 ]. In this project, our authorship team wished to gain deeper insights into the potential influence of qualitative research participation on communication education for students and clinicians. In deciding to study ourselves, we developed a modified form of autoethnography, which we describe below. This paper reports the findings from the QUEST working group with all group members represented as authors; there were not separate groups representing “researchers” and “study participants,” but rather one collaborative group working together to explore an a priori question related to our collective experiences. As such, the project did not require IRB approval.

The authorship team convened as the QUEST working group, comprising a 17-member group of students, staff, and faculty with recent qualitative communication research experience, including undergraduate/medical students, residents, fellows, child life specialists, advanced practice providers, and clinical research staff. Within the Quality of Life and Palliative Care Research Division, all learners who had participated in communication research by listening to recorded medical dialogue or reading transcripts of interviews with patients, families, and clinicians at a particular academic institution over the past 3 years were invited via email to participate (n = 21). No exclusionary requirements were applied. Though all invited individuals expressed interest in joining the QUEST working group, a total of 17 people ultimately participated. Individuals agreed to participate in working group conversations by responding in writing to the email invitation. All working group members had participated in analysis of at least one qualitative data set related to communication, with most participating in qualitative research for at least one year (although outliers included 1 member with a 2-month qualitative research elective and 1 member with 5+ years of qualitative research participation). Most of the group was comprised of nursing/medical trainees (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, nursing, and medical students; fellows; n=13); the group also included 2 clinical research staff who engage in communication with patients and families, 1 child life specialist who participated in qualitative research, and 1 clinician-researcher who oversees qualitative research studies. Members’ training, roles, and experiences interfacing with different types of qualitative data are presented in Table 1 .

QUEST working group member characteristics.

The three lead authors crafted a semi-structured working group discussion guide, with iterative revisions to refine questions for content and language. Supplemental Figure presents the guide, encompassing a semi-structured outline of questions prompts and probes to organize and support cooperative conversation. Working group members were encouraged via email to join a virtual 120-minute discussion; those who could not attend were given an opportunity to respond to the questions in writing. A physician-medical anthropologist with training and expertise in group engagement facilitated the virtual discussion. Twelve QUEST working group members, including the three lead authors, attended the recorded virtual session using WebEx (an online platform for virtual group meetings). The conversation introduction included reminders about the importance of reflexivity and how participants’ positionality influences (and may bias) perspectives. Throughout the virtual discussion session, each participant remained engaged and interacted with most question probes, yielding multiple responses for each question. A working group format was used intentionally to explore the targeted question, given the positive potential for group dynamics to help with idea generativity and allow reflections to build upon others’ thoughts and observations [ 20 , 21 ]. Most working group members were students and trainees or clinical research staff, interacting within similar hierarchical tiers. Recognizing the potential for hierarchy to constrain conversation, the one faculty member in a supervisory position observed quietly, engaging only when asked a direct question by another working group member.

Five working group members were unable to attend the virtual discussion due to their training schedules, and they wished to participate in the exploratory question. To ensure inclusion of their voices and perspectives, they were given an opportunity to provide written reflection responses to each item in the structured discussion guide; these lengthy responses were shared via email to contribute their perspectives to the conversation.

Following data generation, the three lead authors initially conducted memo-writing of the recorded discussion and written responses to begin reflecting on and discussing emerging patterns in working group conversation content [ 22 ]. Memo-writers purposefully represented different perspectives from a current clinical trainee, a research staff member, and a faculty member, with iterative discussions held in person and via email to explore how different viewpoints influenced reflections in memos and examine internal biases shaping thoughts and assessments. Content analysis was used to synthesize working group transcripts as this method provides a rigorous process for identification of concepts and themes within text. As concepts were inductively generated via memo-writing, findings were shared with all QUEST members for iterative reflection and input. The QUEST working group collaborated to synthesize and review key themes, with cycles of review and refinement among authors [ 23 , 24 ]. The final report was presented to the working group for member-checking [ 25 ], with confirmation from all authors that thematic findings reflected the comprehensive content of working group discussions.

Working group members consistently emphasized the value of immersion in qualitative research, highlighting the utility of engagement with audio recorded and/or transcribed clinical encounters that included challenging communication scenarios ( Fig. 1 ). Nearly all members described the impact of qualitative research experiences on their personal communication skills and practice, and two driving themes emerged to characterize the “value added” by qualitative research: 1) the tangible benefits of exposure to difficult medical communication prior to real-life encounters; and 2) the potential for long-lasting impact and sustained influence of qualitative research experiences on future clinical practice, including three specific impacts on communication skills (“the 3Cs”).

Influences of qualitative research immersion on learner communication skills.

3.1. Immersive learning prior to real-life training and practice

For many working group members, communication challenges in healthcare were largely hypothetical prior to their participation in qualitative research. Coding real clinical encounters as part of qualitative research revealed the complexity of interpersonal communication and offered lessons for how to navigate difficult conversations with actual patients and families: “I really saw models of what this actually looks like and how do patients and their families respond to different styles.” Authors with limited previous exposure to clinical encounters also shared how immersion in raw qualitative data helped them recognize the emotional intensity experienced by patients, families, and clinicians:

“Listening [to audio-recorded medical dialogue] really helped me to understand how much tension there can be in a room… Just listening to long pauses of silence helped me understand that [prognostic communication] can be really challenging emotionally, both on the clinician side and the family and patient side, how challenging it can be to navigate that both as a parent and as a clinician.”

Another member described how her participation in qualitative research as a medical student informed her future practice as a resident:

“I began intern year in the intensive care unit and had several patients die within my first two to three weeks of residency. Communicating with these families about the goals or priorities of their loved one and then having to tell them when that person had died required attention to detail, meticulous word choice, and rapport building. All of these skills were taught or honed by the coding experience.”

Universally, working group members highlighted how exposure to “real” clinical encounters offered them unique experiences to observe communication skills and reflect on interpersonal dynamics that they could carry forward into their future clinical practice.

3.2. Sustained influence on future clinical practice

Overall, working group members agreed that participating in qualitative research had a greater impact than they anticipated on the way that they provide clinical care. One child life specialist explained specifically how real clinical encounters still shape her everyday clinical practice:

“I was not anticipating the coding experience [would] play such an influential role in my day-to-day clinical practice. The process has made me more reflective in my everyday interactions with patients and families, as I have various narratives to refer back to, and [they] are typically at the forefront of my thoughts when interacting with families now.”

A palliative care physician explained how specific clinician-patient or clinician-family interactions persist in a clinician’s mind through years of clinical practice: “Some of the quotes stick with you and influence your practice.” Many working group members echoed this idea of staying power – conversations witnessed through reading transcripts or listening to audio recordings remained impressed on their minds as reference points for choosing language, reflecting on clinical encounters, and remembering the complexities of patients’ and families’ experiences.

The working group also identified three key themes characterizing how immersion in qualitative communication research influenced aspiring clinicians’ self-perceived communication skills development – the 3Cs ( Table 2 ): 1) C onnection, therapeutic alliance, and accompaniment; 2) C larity and prognostic communication; and 3) C ompassion, empathy, and understanding.

3Cs: Key themes characterizing the impact of qualitative research participation on learners’ communication skills development.

3.3. Skills for aspiring clinicians: connection

Working group members described how witnessing clinicians’ approaches for establishing connection and building therapeutic alliance with patients and families helped them learn how to develop their own skills. Many mentioned the importance of listening carefully to patients and families, as well as the value of silence:

“This experience helped me further develop active listening skills. I think silence is something that often makes people uncomfortable; however, this experience made me realize how many families…want and need a space to process and have others actively listen to their thoughts and emotions. It was very humbling to be a part of that process.”

As detailed in Table 2 , others discussed how they came to realize that affirming patients’ and families’ emotions is essential to establishing therapeutic alliance and how witnessing clinicians establish rapport with families led them to aspire to do the same in their own clinical practice.

Several working group members contemplated the sensation of privilege upon entering what felt like experiencing prognostic communication with the patient and family – accompanying them through the illness trajectory. One nurse practitioner explained that, despite having been a bedside oncology nurse prior to participating in qualitative research, listening to recorded conversations was the first time she had been “in the room” during prognostic disclosure:

“What really struck me was how you do feel like you’re living through the process with the family… Living all those intense moments with the family feels extremely different than even what the providers themselves might feel.”

Some participants felt the emotion of experiencing disease reevaluation discussions with the families so intensely that they became uncomfortable and concerned they might be intruding: “In a way, it almost feels like you are listening to a private conversation, like you’re impinging on their privacy.” All participants agreed that reviewing transcripts and recordings represented more than a research task – for many, it felt like an honor to witness families most challenging moments.

3.4. Skills for aspiring clinicians: clarity

One working group member, who began qualitative research as an undergraduate student and is currently a medical resident, explained how her prior experiences with qualitative research actively motivate her to be clearer in her communication with patients and families:

“My experience with [reading transcripts] has…informed core beliefs I have regarding communication with patients, especially related to giving bad news… Remembering how [a particular] family felt from not discussing the full extent of the truth encourages me to…talk about all possible outcomes early… It also motivates me to be honest, even when it is hard. So many parents [in interviews]…said they didn’t want someone to ‘beat around the bush.’ I want to tell the truth in a kind way and set the scene for success.”

Another member, who was exposed to qualitative research while practicing as a child life specialist, also underscored how qualitative research training has helped her better understand the value of intentionality when communicating bad news, including exploring and accepting patients’ and families’ reactions to the news conveyed:

“The experience of coding has definitely influenced my clinical practice. One parent…shared that her first thought when our team offered legacy building interventions was: ‘Are you f***ing kidding me?’ I find myself actively thinking about this parent and her reaction every time that I am about to offer these types of interventions – and furthermore thinking about the themes that emerged when coding this data that reiterated the various ways our introduction of these interventions may be improved.”

Several working group members also explained that clinical communication research projects led them to develop heightened awareness of the impact of language on patients/families: “[I developed] awareness that the words that we use can have these long-lasting ramifications and impact. It gives you a heightened cognizance of how important the language and interactions are.”

3.5. Skills for aspiring clinicians: compassion

Compassion through understanding and empathy was a pervasive theme across working group members’ reflections on participating in qualitative research: “I think [participation in qualitative research] helps foster empathy and compassion. Medicine can be very draining; there are many systemic barriers to providing care in a patient-centered, thoughtful, and kind way.” Many articulated how qualitative research participation helped them to dig deeper into patients’ and families’ stories, not just limited to clinical encounters in clinical spaces: “Seeing the stories, not just the patients. This work inherently teaches you about the value of the story.” One author explained that this sense of walking with patients and families helped foster patience: “I think [patience] comes from having more perspective into their narrative and giving them the benefit of the doubt because you have not just the hospital, clinical side – you have more insight into the other side of things.” Working group members emphasized how more complex understandings of patients’ and families’ lives generated deeper understanding and compassion, which they recognized as skills integral to provision of high-quality medical care in their future careers.

3.6. Unanticipated impact: Self-care and professional affirmation

Working group members identified various unexpected positive outcomes from participation in qualitative research, including how it influenced perceptions of self-care and professional affirmation. Witnessing the strength and wisdom of parents of children with serious illness and/or bereaved parents inspired many learners. One member explained that studying communication through qualitative research methods allowed her to be less harsh on herself in evaluating her own communication: “This experience has provided me with the space to allow myself grace when I know I could have completed an intervention in a different way.” Several also shared that the research experience has affirmed their decisions into go into healthcare professions:

“I remember sitting down and really listening to one of the conversations, and immediately, I was so filled with emotion that tears really filled my eyes, partly because of the emotion of the conversation but also because I had been longing for this viewpoint, as it addressed why I had become really passionate about nursing. It reignited my passion for nursing and healthcare.”

Another echoed this same idea, explaining that the work reinvigorated her medical studies: “Seeing how this life experience affects these parents each and every day really allowed me to see the gravity of the situation and gave me the motivation to continue on this journey towards becoming a doctor.”

An additional unexpected benefit of qualitative research participation was deconstruction of hierarchy in clinical medicine. The process through which team members from various roles and statuses came together to reach consensus in coding belied self-perceived hierarchical identities:

“I was surprised by the richness of diligence and detail involved in the work, including check mechanisms that produced consensus. I found the reconciliation process to be a perfect example of this. The meetings were equal parts presentation of fact and defense of personal standpoint that involved everyone as an equal partnered contributor.”

An author who participated in this research as an undergraduate emphasized the power of connection among team members that overrode the difference of education level or training experience: “We connected on raw emotion that we felt from the conversation – even though we may be at very different stages of life, we still felt the same responses to some scenarios.”

Working group members emphasized that qualitative research participation also helped them develop skills in teaching and mentoring, as well as influenced how they approached the development of communications training programs and curricula in the future. Finally, they explained that it inspired them to continue self-reflection on communication, driving them to develop their practices of life-long learning. Table 3 articulates both benefits in more detail. Alongside these positive benefits, working group members also identified unexpected challenges, acknowledging the emotional weight of accompanying families, bearing witness, and feeling responsible for empathetic and compassionate communication, detailed in Table 4 .

Benefits of qualitative research participation as educators and life-long learners.

Unexpected challenges of participation in qualitative research: the emotional weight of accompanying families, bearing witness, and feeling responsible for empathetic and compassionate communication.

4. Discussion and conclusion

4.1. discussion.

Clinician-researchers with immersive experience in qualitative research identified the value of research participation on gaining and sustaining important communication skills. Key lessons from the working group are summarized in Fig. 2 .

Key takeaway lessons from exploratory investigation of influences of participation in qualitative research on clinicians-in-training.

These findings raise the possibility that opportunities for participation in qualitative research alongside communication scientists may be an under-utilized resource for medical educators seeking to support trainees in developing important communication skills. Theories of experiential learning [ 26 , 27 ] and reflexive learning [ 28 , 29 ] underscore the potential educational benefit of qualitative research participation [ 30 ], in that they suggest that learning through doing and informally and formally reflecting on experiences may be more effective at conveying key lessons in clinical communication than didactics, small group discussions, or other instruction on the topic. We encourage medical educators and communication researchers to explore strategies for collaboration through engagement of undergraduate, graduate, medical, and post-graduate clinicians- and researchers-in-training. Rethinking the potential of qualitative research to improve clinical education may be bidirectionally beneficial, strengthening communication skills training while also reinforcing the value of qualitative research.

Further, these data preliminarily suggest that regular immersion in qualitative data may support resilience building for learners, and future research is needed to explore this potential. Listening to recordings or reading transcripts from clinical encounters offers trainees a unique opportunity to bear witness and experience diagnostic or prognostic communication, metaphorically standing alongside the patient and family, while still maintaining space to reflect, question, cry, otherwise respond, pause, discuss, and debrief the encounter. DIPEx International and other similar resources amalgamating qualitative research data can be incorporated into learning opportunities that enable more clinical trainees to conduct qualitative research.

The research team functions as a support group within which researchers can process the emotional weight and lessons learned from the encounter. This “practice run” prior to driving difficult conversations offers trainees the chance to develop communications skills and bolster both their approach and confidence prior to patient encounters [ 31 ]. Prior qualitative research experiences enable trainees to avoid feeling overwhelmed, hitting the ground running, prepared for the emotional burden and capable of listening, leaving room for silence, building empathy, and prioritizing compassion. Working group members felt prepared not only to practice skillful communication, but also to teach strategies.

Findings from the work should be interpreted in the context of limitations. Working group members all had participated in qualitative research previously and thus likely had a predisposition for engagement with and enthusiasm for communication research and qualitative methodology. It is possible that a different group of learners – perhaps those who tend toward a more positivist sensibility – may not find participation in qualitative research as useful for communication skills development. Additionally, not all QUEST working group members had an opportunity to participate in collective, generative dialogue to build upon ideas in real time. Several members participated by sharing their perspectives in writing, and although this allowed for enrichment of perspectives and experiences, it is not possible to know how additional interaction may have shaped the collective message.

Innovation: We offer two innovative approaches to healthcare professions education. First, we offer an innovative research methodology – an adaptation of autoethnography that involves collaboration among a group of people who share an experience (i.e., qualitative research participation), generate reflective data about that experience, and then work together to analyze those data. The methodology carried out by the collaborative working group to explore an a priori question related to our collective experiences is innovative, in that there was no division between “researchers” and “study participants” and thus the process was not traditional “research” but rather collaborative generation of knowledge. Inspired by autoethnographic methods, in which one person generates data from their own experiences, observations, and reflections and then analyzes those data, we have embarked upon a modified autoethnographic endeavor in which we collected data from ourselves as a working group made up of people with shared qualitative communication research participation experience and then analyzed and interpreted those data collectively. Different members of the working group participated in different ways to generate and analyze the data; we generated our own data and then studied our own experiences by analyzing the data. This methodology enables and may even empower health professions educators to study their own educational innovations.

Second, we offer a pedagogical innovation for health professions education, in which participation in qualitative research provides a learning experience for students in the health professions. We found that experience in qualitative research about communication facilitated learning about how to connect with patients and families, communicate clearly, and practice with empathy and compassion. Beyond the communication domain, additional applications of qualitative research experience as a learning opportunity might involve topics such as resilience, mindfulness, meaning-making, and self-reflection as tools to combat burnout or compassion fatigue.

With regards to application of findings, rethinking qualitative research participation as an underutilized educational opportunity is pedagogically innovative and should inspire medical education leaders to collaborate with communication researchers in engagement of undergraduate, graduate, medical, and post-graduate trainees. Collaborations between health professions educators and qualitative researchers could lead beyond communication, expanding to teaching about self-awareness, humility, active listening, quiet observation, and the critical importance of triangulating data to deepen information synthesis and interpretation. Rich opportunities exist to further probe how students immersed in qualitative research gain knowledge and skills. Further research also is needed to explore the benefits of partnerships between medical education and qualitative research teams in development of immersion-based communication learning.

4.2. Conclusion

Exposing clinical trainees to communication through participation in qualitative research has the potential to enhance self-perceived communication competency in three key domains: (1) Connection, (2) Clarity, and (3) Compassion, preparing them for future clinical encounters. Further, such exposure may have the potential to strengthen emotional intelligence and promote self-care, professional affirmation, and resilience.

Funding sources

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Credit author statement

Amy Porter: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draftWriting

Cameka Woods: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – review & editing.

Erica Kaye: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft

All other authors: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgements.

We thank working group members’ qualitative research mentors and collaborators for providing teaching and support throughout their qualitative research experiences.

Appendix A Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecinn.2022.100079 .

Contributor Information

Taylor aglio, jacob applegarth.

b Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Royal Oak, MI, USA (Jacob)

Tharwa Bilbeisi

c University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

d Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, USA

Katie Greer

e University of California Davis Children’s Hospital, Sacramento, CA, USA

Rachel Huber

Ashley kiefer autrey.

f Children’s Hospital of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

Sarah Rockwell

g Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

Marta Salek

Melanie stall.

h University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

Mariela Trejo

i University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

j University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, Memphis, TN, USA

Kristina Zalud

k St. Louis Children’s Hospital, St. Louis, MO, USA

Appendix A. Supplementary data

QUEST Working Group Discussion Guide

Chapter 16: Communication Research

Quantitative methods, steps for doing quantitative research.

Quantitative methods represent the steps of using the Scientific Method of research.

• Decide on a focus of study based primarily on your interests. What do you want to discover or answer?
• Develop a research question(s) to keep your research focused.
• Develop a hypothesis(es). A hypothesis states how a researcher believes the subjects under study will or will not communicate based on certain variables. For example, you may have a research question that asks, “Does the gender of a student impact the number of times a college professor calls on his/her students?” From this, you might form two hypotheses: “Instructors call on female students less often then male students.” and “Instructors call on students of their same sex.”
• Collect data in order to test hypotheses. In our example, you might observe various college classrooms in order to count which students professors call on more frequently.
• Analyze the data by processing the numbers using statistical programs like SPSS that allow quantitative researchers to detect patterns in communication phenomena. Analyzing data in our example would help us determine if there are any significant differences in the ways in which college professors call on various students.
• Interpret the data to determine if patterns are significant enough to make broad claims about how humans communicate? Simply because professors call on certain students a few more times than other students may or may not indicate communicative patterns of significance.
• Share the results with others. Through the sharing of research we continue to learn more about the patterns and rules that guide the ways we communicate.

The term quantitative refers to research in which we can quantify, or count, communication phenomena . Quantitative methodologies draw heavily from research methods in the physical sciences explore human communication phenomena through the collection and analysis of numerical data. Let’s look at a simple example. What if we wanted to see how public speaking textbooks represent diversity in their photographs and examples. One thing we could do is quantify these to come to conclusions about these representations. For quantitative research, we must determine which communicative acts to count? How do we go about counting them? Is there any human communicative behavior that would return a 100% response rate like the effects of gravity in the physical sciences? What can we learn by counting acts of human communication?

Suppose you want to determine what communicative actions illicit negative responses from your professors. How would you go about researching this? What data would you count? In what ways would you count them? Who would you study? How would you know if you discovered anything of significance that would tell us something important about this? These are tough questions for researchers to answer, particularly in light of the fact that, unlike laws in the physical sciences, human communication is varied and unpredictable.

Nevertheless, there are several quantitative methods researchers use to study communication in order to reveal patterns that help us predict and control our communication. Think about polls that provide feedback for politicians. While people do not all think the same, this type of research provides patterns of thought to politicians who can use this information to make policy decisions that impact our lives. Let’s look at a few of the more frequent quantitative methods of communication research.

Types of Quantitative Methods

There are many ways researchers can quantify human communication. Not all communication is easily quantified, but much of what we know about human communication comes from quantitative research.

• Experimental Research is the most well-established quantitative methodology in both the physical and social sciences. This approach uses the principles of research in the physical sciences to conduct experiments that explore human behavior. Researchers choose whether they will conduct their experiments in lab settings or real-world settings. Experimental research generally includes a control group (the group where variables are not altered) and the experimental group(s) (the group in which variables are altered). The groups are then carefully monitored to see if they enact different reactions to different variables.

To determine if students were more motivated to learn by participating in a classroom game versus attending a classroom lecture, the researchers designed an experiment. They wanted to test the hypothesis that students would actually be more motivated to learn from the game. Their next question was, “do students actually learn more by participating in games?” In order to find out the answers to these questions they conducted the following experiment. In a number of classes instructors were asked to proceed with their normal lecture over certain content (control group), and in a number of other classes, instructors used a game that was developed to teach the same content (experimental group). The students were issued a test at the end of the semester to see which group did better in retaining information, and to find out which method most motivated students to want to learn the material. It was determined that students were more motivated to learn by participating in the game, which proved the hypothesis. The other thing that stood out was that students who participated in the game actually remembered more of the content at the end of the semester than those who listened to a lecture. You might have hypothesized these conclusions yourself, but until research is done, our assumptions are just that (Hunt, Lippert & Paynton).

Case In Point

Quantitative methods in action.

Wendy S. Zabada-Ford (2003) conducted survey research of 253 customers to determine their expectations and experiences with physicians, dentists, mechanics, and hairstylists. Her article, “Research Communication Practices of Professional Service Providers: Predicting Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty” researched the perceptions of customers’ personalized service as related to their expectations in order to predict their satisfaction with the actual service they received. In this study, the goal was to be able to predict the behavior of customers based on their expectations before entering a service-provider context.

Michael T. Stephenson’s (2003) article, “Examining Adolescents’ Responses to Anti-marijuana PSAs” examined how adolescents respond to anti-marijuana public service announcements in the U.S. On the surface, this study may fit into the “understanding” part of the continuum of intended outcomes. However, this research can be used to alter and change messages, such as PSAs, to produce behavioral change in the culture. In this case, the change would be to either keep adolescents from smoking marijuana, or to get them to stop this behavior if they are currently engaged in it.

• Survey Research is used to ask people a number of questions about particular topics. Surveys can be online, mailed, handed out, or conducted in interview format. After researchers have collected survey data, they represent participants’ responses in numerical form using tables, graphs, charts, and/or percentages. On our campus, anonymous survey research was done to determine the drinking and drug habits of our students. This research demonstrated that the percentage of students who frequently use alcohol or drugs is actually much lower than what most students think. The results of this research are now used to educate students that not everyone engages in heavy drinking or drug use, and to encourage students to more closely align their behaviors with what actually occurs on campus, not with what students perceive happens on campus. It is important to remember that there is a possibility that people do not always tell the truth when they answer survey questions. We won’t go into great detail here due to time, but there are sophisticated statistical analyses that can account for this to develop an accurate representation of survey responses.

• Content Analysis . Researchers use content analysis to count the number of occurrences of their particular focus of inquiry. Communication researchers often conduct content analyses of movies, commercials, television shows, magazines, etc., to count the number of occurrences of particular phenomena in these contexts to explore potential effects. Harmon, for example, used content analysis in order to demonstrate how the portrayal of blackness had changed within Black Entertainment Television (BET). She did this by observing the five most frequently played films from the time the cable network was being run by a black owner, to the five most frequently played films after being sold to white­-owned Viacom, Inc. She found that the portrayal, context and power of the black man changes when a white man versus a black man is defining it. Content analysis is extremely effective for demonstrating patterns and trends in various communication contexts. If you would like to do a simple content analysis, count the number of times different people are represented in photos in your textbooks. Are there more men than women? Are there more caucasians represented than other groups? What do the numbers tell you about how we represent different people?
• Meta-Analysis . Do you ever get frustrated when you hear about one research project that says a particular food is good for your health, and then some time later, you hear about another research project that says the opposite? Meta-analysis analyzes existing statistics found in a collection of quantitative research to demonstrate patterns in a particular line of research over time. Meta-analysis is research that seeks to combine the results of a series of past studies to see if their results are similar, or to determine if they show us any new information when they are looked at in totality. The article, Impact of Narratives on Persuasion in Health Communication: A Meta-Analysis examined past research regarding narratives and their persuasiveness in health care settings. The meta-analysis revealed that in-person and video narratives had the most persuasive impacts while written narratives had the least (Shen, Sheer, Li).

Outcomes of Quantitative Methodologies

Because it is unlikely that Communication research will yield 100% certainty regarding communicative behavior, why do Communication researchers use quantitative approaches? First, the broader U.S. culture values the ideals of quantitative science as a means of learning about and representing our world. To this end, many Communication researchers emulate research methodologies of the physical sciences to study human communication phenomena. Second, you’ll recall that researchers have certain theoretical and methodological preferences that motivate their research choices. Those who understand the world from an Empirical Laws and/or Human Rules Paradigm tend to favor research methods that test communicative laws and rules in quantitative ways.

Even though Communication research cannot produce results with 100% accuracy, quantitative research demonstrates patterns of human communication. In fact, many of your own interactions are based on a loose system of quantifying behavior. Think about how you and your classmates sit in your classrooms. Most students sit in the same seats every class meeting, even if there is not assigned seating. In this context, it would be easy for you to count how many students sit in the same seat, and what percentage of the time they do this. You probably already recognize this pattern without having to do a formal study. However, if you wanted to truly demonstrate that students communicatively manifest territoriality to their peers, it would be relatively simple to conduct a quantitative study of this phenomenon. After completing your research, you could report that X% of students sat in particular seats X% of times. This research would not only provide us with an understanding of a particular communicative pattern of students, it would also give us the ability to predict, to a certain degree, their future behaviors surrounding space issues in the classroom.

Quantitative research is also valuable for helping us determine similarities and/or differences among groups of people or communicative events. Representative examples of research in the areas of gender and communication (Berger; Slater), culture and communication (McCann, Ota, Giles, & Caraker; Hylmo & Buzzanell), as well as ethnicity and communication (Jiang Bresnahan, Ohashi, Nebashi, Wen Ying, Shearman; Murray-Johnson) use quantitative methodologies to determine trends and patterns of communicative behavior for various groups. While these trends and patterns cannot be applied to all people, in all contexts, at all times, they help us understand what variables play a role in influencing the ways we communicate.

While quantitative methods can show us numerical patterns, what about our personal lived experiences? How do we go about researching them, and what can they tell us about the ways we communicate? Qualitative methods have been established to get at the “essence” of our lived experiences, as we subjectively understand them.

• Survey of Communication Study. Authored by : Scott T Paynton and Linda K Hahn. Provided by : Humboldt State University. Located at : https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_Study/Preface . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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EDUC 230: Communication Skills for Teachers -- Spring 2018: Qualitative Research

• Getting Started
• Scholarly Research
• Books and Ebooks
• Article Databases
• Qualitative Research
• Evaluating Sources
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• InterLibrary Loan

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research  (from St Mary's University in Minnesota)  Explains the differences between quantitative and qualitative research.

Qualitative versus Quantitative Reseach (from Xavier University Library) Helpful table highlighting the differences in these research methods

Recommended Journals

• The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas
• International journal of qualitative methods  
• Teaching and teacher education  
• The Qualitative Report  

Searching for Qualitative Studies: Tip 1

Tip 1:  focus on terminology.

Although qualitative studies are sometimes flagged as "qualitative" in either the title or the subject headings, this is not always true.  Researchers must be creative and flexible in order to find qualitative research, particularly in the ERIC database. Think about searching with terms that might indicate a qualitative approach.

Searching for Qualitiative Articles: Tip 2

Tip 2:  look for clues -- use your thesaurus / subject terms.

Most databases such as ERIC and PsycInfo will have a thesaurus that can help guide you to the words and phrases that are used to group articles together by their main ideas and (sometimes) by their methodologies.  You can search these thesauri directly in the databases to discover relevant words to use in your search.

A simpler but equally effective way to discover relevant subject terms is to examine the subject terms that appear within your search results:

Video: Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

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