Discussion : Detecting Signals in the Noise

Discussion : Detecting Signals in the Noise

When embarking on any research project, you should be reasonably certain that the project will return useful results to pay back the time and effort invested in it. With quantitative projects this means that the study should be strong enough to detect the "signal" that one is looking for, if it indeed exists—whether that signal is a difference between two or more groups, the correlation between measured variables, the predictive power of a regression equation, or some other output of a quantitative research methodology.

Describe in general terms the factors that affect the strength of a quantitative study. Identify the change in each factor that would make the study stronger and explain why the specified change will change the strength of the study.