Theme 4. Quantitative research

Quantitative paper: The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students Use of Online Social Network Sites, Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, Cliff Lampe, 23 AUG 2007

I chose a paper about a Facebook intensity and social capital. 286 undergraduate students participated in an online survey. The survey consisted of different parts, one part were their social capital were investigated and another part consisting of questions about their Facebook habits. These could later be matched to prove their hypotheses.

I think that they used their data well but the way they chose their data made it hard for them to get to any significant conclusions. Their goal was to find a link between Facebook usage and social capital. In my opinion you need to send the survey to a large group of Facebook users but also to a large group of non users. Then you can analyse the differences between the two groups to see if there is a bond between Facebook usage and social capital. 268 of the participating students were Facebook users and only 18 were non users. Instead they had to explore the relation between social capital and the intensity of Facebook usage. The authors did have some good questions in there survey about how people used Facebook. I think that without these questions the results would be meaningless because people use Facebook in so many different ways.

That they only send the survey to a small group of people makes it impossible to generalize the conclusions but on the other hand it is fair to say that it fits very well with the University of Michigan where the undergraduates studied.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
It is a simple way of gathering large amounts of data for analysis. Statistic conclusions can be drawn but sometimes it can be difficult to understand the result. If it is a survey you need to make sure that the questions are interpreted the correct way, otherwise the result could be incorrect. It can be used to test all sorts of things, not only human behavior.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
With these methods it is much easier to understand where, when, why and how the results occurred. The method is more flexible and it makes it easier to obtain data that you might have missed out during a quantitative research but since the questions and answers are more open in a qualitative method it is harder to analyse and to make conclusions.