Example of a Quantitative Research

Paper for Students & Researchers

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BMITTING JOURNAL ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION / EXAMPLE OF A QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH PAPER FOR STUDENTS
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Example of a Quantitative Research Paper for

Students & Researchers
January 5, 2019 Rene Tetzner
Advice & Discussions on Preparing & Submitting Journal Articles for Publication

Example of a Quantitative Research Paper for Students & Researchers

This example of a quantitative research paper is designed to help students and other r
esearchers who are learning how to write about their work. The reported research obs
erves the behaviour of restaurant customers, and example paragraphs are combined
with instructions for logical argumentation. Authors are encouraged to observe a tradi-
tional structure for organising quantitative research papers, to formulate research que
stions, working hypotheses and investigative tools, to report results accurately and thor
oughly, and to present thoughtful interpretation and logical discussion of evidence.

The structure of the example and the nature of its contents follow the recommenda-
tions of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. This APA style c
alls for parenthetical author–date citations in the paper’s main text (with page numbers
when material is quoted) and a final list of complete references for all sources cited, so
I have given a few sample references here. Content has been kept as simple as possi-
ble to focus attention on the way in which the paper presents the research process and
its results. As is the case in many research projects, the more the author learns and thi
nks about the topic, the more complex the issues become, and here the researcher dis
cusses a hypothesis that proved incorrect. An APA research paper would normally in-
clude additional elements such as an abstract, keywords and perhaps tables, figures an
d appendices similar to those referred to in the example. These elements have been eli
minated for brevity here, so do be sure to check the APA Manual (or any other guide-
lines you are following) for the necessary instructions.

Surprises at a Local “Family” Restaurant: Example Quantitative Research Paper

A quantitative research paper with that title might start with a paragraph like this:

Quaintville, located just off the main highway only five miles from the university cam-
pus, may normally be a sleepy community, but recent plans to close the only fast-food
restaurant ever to grace its main street have been met with something of a public out-
cry. Regular clients argue that Pudgy’s Burgers fills a vital function and will be sorely mi
ssed. As the editor of the Quaintville Times would have it, “good old Pudgy’s is the only r
estaurant in Quaintville where a working family can still get a decent meal for a fair buc
k, and a comfortable place to eat it too, out of the winter wind where the kids can run a
bout and play a bit” (Chapton, 2017, p. A3). On the other hand, the most outspoken of
Quaintville residents in favour of the planned closure look forward to the eradication of
a local eyesore and tend to consider the restaurant more of “a hazard than a benefit to
the health of some of our poorest families” (“Local dive,” 2017, p. 1).

Following this opening a brief introduction to published scholarship and other issues as
sociated with the problem would be appropriate, so here the researcher might add a p
aragraph or two discussing:

• A selection of recently published studies that investigate the effect of inexpensive fast
-food restaurants on the health of low-income families, especially their children (Shunts
, 2013; Whinner, 2015).
• Fast-food restaurants that have responded to criticism about the quality of their food
by offering healthy menu items. This could be enhanced with evidence that when such
choices are available, they are rare purchases for many families (Parkson, 2016), par-
ticularly in small towns and rural areas (Shemble, 2017).
• The interesting trend in several independent studies suggesting that families form a
much smaller portion of the clientele of fast-food restaurants than anticipated.

Explaining how the current research is related to the published scholarship as well as t
he specific problem is vital. Here, for instance, the author might be thinking that Pudgy’
s, which has healthy menu items as well as the support of so many long-term residents,
will prove an exception to the trends revealed by other studies. Research questions an
d hypotheses should be constructed to articulate and explore that idea. Research ques
tions, for instance, could be developed from that claim in the Quaintville Times as well a
s from the published scholarship:

• Do families constitute the majority of Pudgy’s regular clientele?

• Does the restaurant offer a decent family meal for a fair price?
• Do families linger in the restaurant’s comfort and warmth?>
• Do children use the indoor play area provided by the restaurant?

Working hypotheses can be constructed by anticipating answers to these questions. Th

e example paper assumes a simple hypothesis something along the lines of “Families d
o indeed constitute the majority of Pudgy’s clientele.” The exact opposite supposition w
ould work as well – “Families do not constitute the majority of Pudgy’s clientele” – and s
o would hypotheses exploring and combining other aspects of the situation, such as “P
udgy’s healthy menu options and indoor play area are positive and appealing consid-
erations for families” or “The comfortable atmosphere of Pudgy’s with its play area mak
es it much more than a restaurant for local families.”

The exact wording of your questions and hypotheses will ultimately depend on your fo
cus and aims, but certain terms, concepts and categories may require definition to ens
ure precision in communicating your ideas to readers. Here, for instance, exactly what i
s meant by ‘a family,’ ‘a decent meal,’ ‘a fair price’ and even ‘comfortable’ could be briefl
y but carefully defined. A general statement about your understanding of how the curr
ent research will explore the problem, answer your questions and test your hypotheses
is usually required as well, setting the stage for the more detailed Method section that f
ollows. This statement might be something as simple as “I intend to observe the restau
rant’s customers over a two-month period with the objective of learning about Pudgy’s
clientele and measuring the use and value of the establishment for local families.” On t
he other hand, outlining your research might require a paragraph or two of introducto-
ry discussion.

Method
Whether a brief general statement or a longer explanation of how the research will pro
ceed appears among your introductory material, it is in the Method section that you sh
ould report exactly what you did to conduct your investigation, explain the conditions a
nd controls you applied to increase the reliability and value of your research, and re-
veal any difficulties you encountered. For example:

My observations took place at Pudgy’s Burgers in January and February of 2018. Each s
ession was approximately four hours long, and I aimed to obtain an equivalent number
of observations for all opening hours of the week (the restaurant’s hours are listed in T
able 1), but course requirements made this difficult. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons
are therefore underrepresented, and observations from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm on two co
nsecutive Tuesdays (6 and 13 February) are the work of my classmate, Jake Jenkins. Wit
hout his assistance, I could not have met my objective of gathering observations for ev
ery opening hour of the week at least twice (Table 2 outlines the overall pattern of ob-
servation sessions). Serving staff at the restaurant assure me that I have now “seen ‘em
all,” so I believe my observations have resulted in a representative sampling of local cus
tomers over two months when that “winter wind” has been especially busy about its wo
rk.

To avoid detection by the customers I was observing and the possibility of altering their
behaviour, I obtained permission from Pudgy’s manager, Mr Jobson, to sit at the staff ta
ble in a dark and quiet corner of the restaurant where clients never go. This table is lab
elled in the plan of Pudgy’s Burgers and its grounds that I have included as Figure 1. Fro
m there I could see the customers both at the service counter and at their tables, but t
hey could not see me, at least not clearly, and if they did, they paid me no more atten-
tion than they did the restaurant employees. From the staff table I could also see the ro
w of indoor park-style children’s toys running down the north wall of windows, as well a
s the take out lane and the people waiting in their cars.

A Method section often features subheadings to separate and present particularly imp
ortant aspects of the research methodology, such as the Customer Fact Sheet devel-
oped and used by the author of this study.
The Customer Fact Sheet
Recording thorough and equivalent information about every Pudgy’s customer I ob-
served was crucial for quantifying and analysing the results of my study. I therefore pre
pared a Customer Fact Sheet (included as Appendix I at the end of this paper) for gath-
ering key pieces of information and recording observations about each individual, cou-
ple or group who purchased food or beverages. This sheet ensured that vital details su
ch as date, weather conditions, time of arrival, eat in or take out order, number in par-
ty, approximate age of individuals, food purchased, food consumed, healthy choices, a
mount spent, who paid, dessert or extra beverage, children playing, interaction with ot
her children and families, time of departure and other important details were recorded
in every case. The Customer Fact Sheet proved particularly helpful when my classmate
performed observations for me and was invaluable for evaluating the data I collected. I
initially hoped to complete at least 500 of these Customer Fact Sheets and was pleased
to increase that number by 100 for a total of 600 or an average of just over 10 per day
over the 59 days of the study.

Notice in the three example paragraphs for the Method section that clear references to
Tables 1 & 2, Figure 1 and Appendix I are provided to let readers know when and why t
hese extra elements are relevant and helpful. Be sure also to include in your descrip-
tion of methods any additional approaches or sources of information that should be co
nsidered part of your research procedures, such as:

• Receipt information about customer purchases provided by the restaurant manager.

• Conversations with restaurant servers who might confirm family relationships and est
imated ages or tell you what was eaten and what was not by particular customer group
s.
• The analysis you performed to make sense of your results, such as counting cus-
tomers, meals and behaviours and working out percentages and averages overall as w
ell as for certain categories in order to answer the research questions.

Results
The Results section is where you report what you discovered during your research, in-
cluding the findings that do not support your hypothesis (or hypotheses) as well as tho
se that do. Returning to your research questions to indicate exactly how the data you g
athered answers them is an excellent way to stay focused and enable the selectivity tha
t may be necessary to meet length requirements or maintain a clear line of argumen-
tation. A Results section for the Pudgy’s research project might start like this:

The results of my investigation were both surprising and more complex than I had an-
ticipated. I asked whether families constituted the majority of Pudgy’s clientele and ass
umed they did, but my research shows that they do not (see Figure 2 for information o
n customer categories). Even when the loosest definition of family as explained in my i
ntroduction is applied, only slightly over 25% (152) of the 600 Customer Fact Sheets rec
ord family visits to the restaurant. Among them fathers alone with their children are th
e most frequent patrons (68 Customer Fact Sheets or nearly 45% of the family catego-
ry). The only day of the week on which families approach 50% of the restaurant’s cus-
tomers is Sunday, particularly in the afternoon, when family groups account for 48% of
the total customers averaged over the eight Sundays of observation. On all other days
of the week, individual customers are the most frequent patrons, with their numbers h
overing around 50% on most days. Single men visit the restaurant more often than any
other customers and constitute as much as 61% of the clientele on a few weekday even
ings.

The report of results might then continue by providing information about other cate-
gories of customer, what different types of customers ate and did, and any additional r
esults that help answer the other research questions posed in the introductory para-
graphs. Major trends revealed by the data should be reported, and both content and w
riting style should be clear and factual. Interpretation and discussion are best saved for
the Discussion section except in those rare instances when guidelines indicate that res
earch results and discussion should be combined in a single section. Although you will
need to inform readers about any mathematical or statistical analysis of your raw data
if you have not already done so in the Method section, the raw data itself is usually not
appropriate for a short research paper. Selecting the most convincing and relevant ev-
idence as the focus is, however, and the raw data can usually be made available via a u
niversity’s website or a journal’s online archives for expert readers and future re-
searchers.

Discussion
The Discussion section of a quantitative paper is where you interpret your research res
ults and discuss their implications. Here the hypotheses as well as the research ques-
tions established in the introductory material are important. Were your primary sup-
positions confirmed by your results or not? Be precise and concise as you discuss your
findings, but keep in mind that matters need not be quite as black and white or as strict
ly factual as they were in the Results section. Your ideas and argument should be soun
dly based on the data you collected, of course, but the Discussion is the place for de-
scribing complexities and expressing uncertainties as well as offering interpretations a
nd explanations. The following opening briefly restates primary findings, picks up other
important threads from the Results section and sets the stage for discussing the com-
plexities involved in assessing the true value of Pudgy’s to the Quaintville community:

Although I had anticipated that families constitute the majority of Pudgy’s clientele, the
evidence gathered over two months of observation does not support this supposition. I
n fact, individuals are the most frequent customers, with groups of teenagers running a
close second. These teenagers are often in the restaurant when families are and they s
ometimes sit on the indoor toys instead of at the plastic tables and chairs, which I can c
onfirm as extremely uncomfortable. On a few occasions the presence of teenagers app
eared to intimidate the children and prevent them from playing on the facilities intend-
ed for them. In accordance with Parkson (2016) and Shemble (2017), my research also s
howed that most families who eat at Pudgy’s do not choose the healthier low-fat menu
items, with the limited number and extremely high prices of these items offering little i
ncentive. The few parents who make healthy choices for themselves and their children
often do not insist upon the children eating those items, adding waste (of both food an
d money) to the problem. Furthermore, although Pudgy’s prices for their more tradi-
tional fast-food items are the lowest in town, at least two of the restaurants in Quaintvil
le offer equivalent meals for similar prices and far healthier ones for just a little more.

The claim, then, in the Quaintville Times that “good old Pudgy’s is the only restaurant in
Quaintville where a working family can still get a decent meal for a fair buck, and a com
fortable place to eat it too, out of the winter wind where the kids can run about and pla
y a bit” (Chapton, 2017, p.A3) is revealed as more sentiment than fact. It would be equal
ly erroneous, however, to insist that Pudgy’s Burgers has no value for the local com-
munity or to call it more of “a hazard…to the health of some of our poorest families” (“L
ocal dive,” 2017, p.1) than any other restaurants serving burgers and chips in Quaintvill
e. Indeed, I suspect those “poorest families” very rarely visit local restaurants at all, but
my observations have revealed a great deal about who does eat at Pudgy’s, what they d
o when they are there and what kind of value the establishment actually has for Quaint
ville residents.
The discussion could then continue with information about the customers, behaviours
and other issues that render the findings more complex and the restaurant more valu-
able to the community than the primary results noted above may indicate:

• Perhaps the restaurant serves a vital function as a social gathering place for all those
single customers. Do they usually remain alone or do they meet up with others to linge
r and talk over coffee or lunch?
• Do the teenagers who gather at Pudgy’s have an alternative place to meet out of the c
old? In towns without recreation centres or other facilities for teens, restaurants with in
formal, open-door policies can be vital. Where might those teenagers go or what might
they be doing were Pudgy’s not there?
• Even though the evidence showed that families are not the most frequent customers,
you may want to consider the value the restaurant has for the families who do use it. T
hose single fathers are certainly worthy of some attention, for instance, and perhaps fa
mily groups occasionally met up with other families, ate together and then lingered for
dessert and talk as their children enjoyed the toys. This would be worth discussing too.
• Less measurable considerations viewed through a qualitative research lens may be h
elpful as well, but the data collected through observations should support such discus-
sions. Remember as you analyse your data, reflect on your findings, determine their m
eaning and develop your argument that it is important to keep the limitations of your
methodology and thus of your results and their implications clearly in mind.

Offering recommendations is also standard in the Discussion section of a quantitative r

esearch paper, and here recommendations might be particularly useful if the franchise
had not yet finalised its decision about closing Pudgy’s and was actively seeking com-
munity feedback. The researcher might suggest that Pudgy’s could better serve families
by increasing the number of healthy food items on the menu, offering these for more a
ffordable prices and making an effort to keep the teenagers off the children’s toys. Fi-
nally, the last part of a Discussion usually provides concluding comments, so sum-
marising your key points and clearly articulating the main messages you want your rea
ders to take away with them are essential. In some organisational templates, Conclu-
sions are offered in a separate final section of the paper instead of at the end of the Dis
cussion, so always check the guidelines.

References
These references follow APA style, but since special fonts may not display properly in al
l online situations, please note that the titles of books and the names and volume num
bers of journals are (and should be) in italic font. The list represents a sample only; a pa
per the length of the one posited in this example would almost certainly mention, dis-
cuss and list more than half a dozen studies and sources.

Chapton, D. (2017, September 29). Will Quaintville lose its favourite family restaurant?
Quaintville Times, pp. A1, A3.
Local dive sees last days. (2017, Autumn). Quaintville Community Newsletter, pp. 1–2.
Shemble, M. (2017). Is anyone really eating healthy fast food in rural towns? Country Fo
od & Families, 14, 12–23.
Shunts, P. (2013). The true cost of high-fat fast food for low-income families. Journal of F
amily Health & Diet, 37, 3–19.
Parkson, L. (2016). Family diets, fast foods and unhealthy choices. In S. Smith & J. Jones
(eds.), Modern diets and family health (pp. 277–294). Philadelphia, PA: The Family Press.
Whinner, N. (2015). Healthy families take time: The impact of fatty fast foods on child h
ealth. Journal of Family Health & Diet, 39, 31–43.

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