Using Quantitative Data to Answer Critical Questions

This volume challenges quantitative researchers to become more critical. By providing examples from the work of several prominent researchers, and by offering concrete recommendations, the editor and authors deliver messages that are likely to cause many educational researchers to reexamine their own work. Traditional quantitative research tends to be probabilistic, and often mass the experiences of many subgroups in the population. Most models, framesworks, and findings that appy to the majority of students and faculty may not adequately apply to important subpopulations as defined by their entry status, financial condition, residential origin, sex, ethnicity, and religious orientation. The collective efforts described here will help readers become more sensitive to the nuances among various educational groups, and to pay more attention to outliers. This volume supplies both motivation and analytical support to those who might incorporate criticality into their own quantitative work, as well as to those who wish read critical perspectives with an open mind about what they might find. This is the 133rd volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Institutional Research.