ABSTRACT
Introduction In Chapter 4, we explored quantitative studies in terms of their internal and external validity, as well as their reliability. We discussed hypothesis testing as a means of determining whether an intervention (also called an independent variable) makes a difference in terms of the results (or dependent variable) measured with two groups. We also considered descriptive statistics that provide information about a specific set of data, as well as inferential statistics that determine whether we can draw conclusions about a larger population based on the study sample. In this chapter, we will analyze a specific report about a quantitative research project to see how its authors have approached the task of exploring previous work on this topic. The chapter contains the full text of Michael Alley, Madeline Schreiber, Katrina Ramsdell, and John Muffo’s “How the design of headlines in presentation slides affects audience retention,” which appeared in the May 2006 issue of Technical Communication, as well as a detailed commentary.
