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The Art of Sophisticated Quantitative Description in Higher Education Research

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Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research

Part of the book series: Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research ((HATR,volume 37))

Abstract

While the emphasis on causal research in education has become increasingly important in recent years, thoughtful, descriptive analysis remains necessary for providing the conceptual grounding for experimental and quasi-experimental research and understanding our world. Sophisticated quantitative description is an approach to research that does not attempt to determine a causal impact. Instead, its purpose is to critically analyze and present data using purposeful methods to build a theory-driven story about a phenomenon that future research can investigate further. Sophisticated description can offer new ways to look at problems of research and practice, provide context and explanation for causal findings, or open new avenues of research. This chapter defines sophisticated quantitative description and provides an overview of its uses in higher education research. It outlines the numerous goals of sophisticated descriptive research and offers potential methods and approaches for conducting sophisticated description. Exemplars and discussion of published sophisticated descriptive research from the higher education literature are included throughout. The chapter concludes with an application of sophisticated description for analyzing college application behavior in the United States using social network analysis.

Nicholas Hillman was the Associate Editor for this chapter.

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Acknowledgments

The social network analysis of students’ college application choices described in this chapter was supported by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Daniel Klasik & William Zahran

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  1. Daniel Klasik
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  2. William Zahran
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Correspondence to Daniel Klasik .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Laura W. Perna

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Klasik, D., Zahran, W. (2022). The Art of Sophisticated Quantitative Description in Higher Education Research. In: Perna, L.W. (eds) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, vol 37. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76660-3_12

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