Quantitative Research Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Quantitative Research Methods - Essay Example There are a number of factors that can be expected to have important role in determining the cognitive ability of individuals in their childhood. These factors include various characteristics of a child including gender, birth weight, breast feeding, etc., parental factors like parent qualification, parents’ social class etc. socioeconomic issues of family including ethnicity, religion, income, housing etc., other family related issues like childcare, bedtime, ability to read, etc. and geographical factors. This study will make an attempt to find which of these factors have significant effect on cognitive ability of children in UK. The thesis statement for this research can be stated as follows: Various children specific, parental, family specific and geographic factors affect cognitive ability of individuals at early age. Against this thesis statement the following research questions can be made: How do children specific factors like gender, birth weight, breast feeding etc a ffect the cognitive ability of a child? How do various parental factors like parents’ qualification, social class, etc. affect the cognitive ability of a child? How do socioeconomic factors related to a family, like ethnicity, religion, income, housing, etc. ... hypothesis: Children specific factors like gender, birth weight, breast feeding etc do not significantly affect the cognitive ability of a child Alternative hypothesis: children specific factors like gender, birth weight, breast feeding etc significantly affect the cognitive ability of a child. Hypotheses related to second research question: Null hypothesis: Various parental factors like parents’ qualification, social class, etc. do not significantly affect the cognitive ability of a child. Alternative hypothesis: Various parental factors like parents’ qualification, social class, etc significantly affect the cognitive ability of a child. Hypotheses related to third research question: Null hypothesis: Socioeconomic factors related to a family, like ethnicity, religion, income, housing, etc. do not significantly affect cognitive ability of a child. Alternative hypothesis: Socioeconomic factors related to a family, like ethnicity, religion, income, housing, etc. significa ntly affect cognitive ability of a child. Hypotheses related to fourth research question: Null hypothesis: Family related factors like bedtime, ability to read, childcare, etc. do not significantly affect cognitive ability of a child. Alternative hypothesis: Family related factors like bedtime, ability to read, childcare, etc. significantly affect cognitive ability of a child. Hypotheses related to fifth research question: Null hypothesis: Geographical factors do not significantly affect cognitive ability of a child. Alternative hypothesis: Geographical factors significantly affect cognitive ability of a child. In order to test these hypotheses a statistical test of regression will be conducted. The data and method for the test will be discussed in the next section. Data and Method: Sample data: For