Keep the identity of all respondents confidential. Quantitative studies that focus on individual responses ask respondents to answer a series of questions with clear, multiple-choice answers. These questions may ask a respondent to evaluate the quality of a product or his opinion on a person. If a respondent believes someone could track her response back to her, she is likely to provide favorable answers about the subject, invalidating her responses. Failing to keep the identity of your respondents confidential places your respondents in danger of harassment from your study subject, in the event of unfavorable results.
Use a clear standard for rejecting results, and publish your standard alongside your results. Quantitative studies require you to omit or reject certain results; however, you should choose your reasons for rejections that are fair to your research. For instance, if you were studying the time students spend using social networking sites each day, you may decide to omit responses that state they do not use social networking sites at all, focusing your study on students who use the sites.
Ensure your quantitative study examines a specific causal relationship between a dependent and independent variable. Developing this type of study requires a strong foundation in the subject. You develop this relationship by examining a large quantity of information from your studies. As an example, over the course of a few students, you may fail to determine any negative impact of time spent socializing with friends in relation to lower grades; however, if you widen your study to a sufficient number of students, you may find a solid relationship.
Report your method of survey selection alongside your results. Quantitative surveys require you to gather information from numerous individuals, but your method of selecting survey applicants is important. If you are using a random selection of people, be sure all elements of your selection are random, such as mailing your survey to 100 people from your town, randomly chosen from the phone book. Ethical breaches occur in survey selection when you select people purposefully and reporting their participation as random.