Qualitative versus Quantitative research methods (original) (raw)

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research

Marsyangdi Journal , 2020

This paper intends to compare and contrast qualitative and quantitative research in brief. Based on library sources, the paper is prepared for the Bachelor and Master level research students plus interested one. The article initiated with the concept of research and its major purposes, and then associates the general information about qualitative, quantitative and mixed method research. Finally, it illustrates the relative and discrepancy between qualitative and quantitative research with a few concluding note.

Title: Discuss the differences between Qualitative and Quantitative research

Research plays a very important role in making sense of the world around us and developing knowledge basis and systems. As such, understanding research methods and paradigms is very important to scholars and researchers if they are to come up with credible and comprehensive research. This paper discusses the differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods and also looks at how the two methods can be similar and how they can be used together. Qualitative research is a scientific and systematic method used to gather data that it not quantifiable (Yin 2018). This type of research, as Marshall (2016)) explains, "refers to the meanings, concepts definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and description of things". Therefore, as a research method, qualitative research is also used to unearth new trends in thought processes and actions, how people feel about specific circumstances and to get to the heart of issues and how they affect people (Wolcott 2016). Marshall (2016) emphasizes that qualitative research is primarily exploratory research and is used to obtain information such as intentions and motives that helps explain an occurrence. Thus, qualitative research methods help to understand new occurrences or trends and then helps to explain why such things are happening or occurring. Quantitative Research is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into useable statistics (Lichtman 2017). According to Wolcott (2016) quantitative research is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables and generalize results from a larger sample population. Thus, quantitative Research uses measurable data to formulate facts and uncover patterns in research to make sense or deductions on how things have unfolded. Therefore, where qualitative data seeks to understand a phenomenon, quantitative methods seek to quantify them and identify variables that can be measured. Qualitative research uses data collecting methods that often require the direct participation of the researcher to gather data and information crucial to the study. Morgan (2017) notes that

Qualitative Vs quantitative researcher

Qualitative and quantitative researchers do use similar elements in their work, however, they state a purpose pose a problem or raise a question, define a research population, collect and analyze data, and present outcome

Qualitative versus quantitative marketing research

Management & Marketing- …, 2007

Marketing research approach might be accomplished in different ways. In the practical view, we can say that treating it as quantitative and qualitative is more pragmatic and operational.

Qualitative or Quantitative Research: How to Choose the Best Design?

Qualitative research is a design used to study a particular group of people in order to find out about their beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours, perceptions, experiences, and how they make meanings in their lives. In short, it is used by the researcher to look deeply inside individuals, to observe the meaning of their lives, and to observe how they create those meanings. For this reason, qualitative research has become very popular among other research methods and it keeps gaining attention from researchers around world in many different fields. Educational organizations have widely employed qualitative research for different purposes.

Qualitative v/s. Quantitative Research- A Summarized Review

Journal of Evidence Based Medicine and Healthcare, 2019

BACKGROUND Qualitative research is a process of naturalistic inquiry that seeks an in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting. It focuses on the "why" rather than the "what" of social phenomena and relies on the direct experiences of human beings as meaning-making agents in their everyday lives. Rather than by logical and statistical procedures, qualitative researchers use multiple systems of inquiry for the study of human phenomena including biography, case study, historical analysis, discourse analysis, ethnography, grounded theory, and phenomenology. Quantitative methodology is the dominant research framework in the social sciences. It refers to a set of strategies, techniques and assumptions used to study psychological, social and economic processes through the exploration of numeric patterns. Quantitative research gathers a range of numeric data. Some of the numeric data is intrinsically quantitative (e.g. personal income), while in other cases the numeric structure is imposed (e.g. 'On a scale from 1 to 10, how depressed did you feel last week?'). The collection of quantitative information allows researchers to conduct simple to extremely sophisticated statistical analyses that aggregate the data. Quantitative research includes methodologies such as questionnaires, structured observations or experiments and stands in contrast to qualitative research. Qualitative research involves the collection and analysis of narratives and/or open-ended observations through methodologies such as interviews, focus groups or ethnographies. The purpose of quantitative research is to generate knowledge and create understanding about the social world. Quantitative research is used by social scientists, including communication researchers, to observe phenomena or occurrences affecting individuals. Social scientists are concerned with the study of people. Quantitative research is a way to learn about a particular group of people, known as a sample population. Using scientific inquiry, quantitative research relies on data that are observed or measured to examine questions about the sample population. 1-2

Comparison between Qualitative and Quantitative Research Approaches Social Sciences

International Journal for Research in Educational Studies , 2019

analyses the entities of the social world from dissimilar features; in truth, nature of knowledge, concentration, matter, fact, and logic of abstract phenomena. Its discoveries out the truth first and then logic and cause-effect analysis of the events or things. It is mostly concerned with the construction of whole human knowledge into logically associated systems based on causality and tries to find out how we distinguish the certain things that can be true or false. In other words, the philosophical analysis of scientific explanation starts with basic perceptions such as theory, achievement, fact, and wisdom. The changing pattern of the philosophical foundations continuously supplements itself with new dimensions and views about the social world. The emergence of constitutive conceptions of the relationship form of knowledge bear to the world has