Quantitative versus

Qualitative Approaches

Qualitative ResearchM. Phil Education

At the start of your research project….

After you have decided upon your research question, you need to decide what approach you are going to take: Quantitative? Qualitative?

Ask yourself are you seeking to prove or disprove a theory? Or are you trying to generalise your findings to a population? If so this will be a deductive approach,

a quantitative approach Or are you hoping to elicit some

understandings on what people think or feel about an issue? Is the topic an area that there is little information and so you must undertake an initial, exploratory study? If so, this will be induction, a qualitative

approach

Deductive Theory

Theory

Hypotheses

Data Collection

Findings

Hypotheses Confirmed or Rejected

Revision of Theory

Induction

[General research question]

Observation

Theory Formulation

Home Exercise

Deductive theory: Test the theory that people who

have never done research before will attend a research methods course to do research in the future

Inductive theory: Why do people do a research

methods course? What is your theory on this?

What other information have you gathered?

Any demographics?

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Quantitative: Deductive Tests

hypotheses Positivism Objectivism Employs

measurement Macro Detached

researcher

Qualitative: Inductive Produces

theories Phenomenology Constructionism Does not employ

measurement Micro Involved researcher

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Quantitative:Measures objective

factsFocuses on

variablesValue freeReliability is keyIndependent of

contextMany casesStatistical analysis

Qualitative:Constructs social

meaningFocus on interactive

processesValues are presentAuthenticity is keyContext constrainedFew casesThematic analysis

Common errors:Open ended questions in surveys

Sometimes people say that they use thematic analysis to analyze open ended questions on a questionnaire/survey. This is incorrect! Thematic analysis is a very specific form of analysis where the data is searched for recurring themes and theory then built from it.

For open ended questions, you post-hoc code. Quantitative by its nature, ‘quantifies’, so after you have collected your answers, you attach codes to responses. And so you can count the types of responses you received.

Common errors: ‘Generalising’ in qualitative research Sometimes you’ll come across people

saying that the qualitative study was small scale and so the findings cannot be generalised to a population. This shows lack of understanding!

Qualitative research never seeks to generalise. It is important that when reporting findings that you use the terminology and methods appropriate to the approach - e.g. don’t use ‘hypothesis’ pertaining to qualitative and if using statistical analysis in quantitative, ALWAYS make sure your sampling is random! [Sampling is the most important step in quantitative work, yet so many get it wrong]

Main Steps in Quantitative Research:

1. Theory2. Hypothesis3. Research design4. Devise measures of concepts5. Select research site(s)6. Select research

subjects/respondents7. Administer research instruments/

collect data8. Process data9. Analyse data10. Write up findings and conclusions

Main Steps in Qualitative Research:

1. General research question2. Select relevant site(s) and subjects3. Collection of relevant data4. Interpretation of data5. Conceptual and theoretical work6. Tighter specification of the research

question7. Collection of further data8. Conceptual and theoretical work9. Write up findings

Examples of Quantitative Research

Methods: Experiments Social surveys

Cross-sectional Comparative (cross-national) Longitudinal

Content Analysis Secondary Statistical Analysis Official Statistics

Demography Epidemiology

Field stimulations Structured Interviews and Observation.

Examples of Qualitative Research:

In-depth Interviews Focus Groups Ethnography/Field Research Historical-Comparative Research Discourse Analysis Narrative Analysis Media Analysis

Worth noting Quantitative and qualitative research are often

cast as opposing fields. But sometimes they blur - qualitative research

may employ quantification in their work or may be positivist in their approach. Some quantitative may employ phenomenology.

Both can be also be combined in a project Qualitative can facilitate quantitative research (1)

can provide hypotheses (2) fill in the gaps, help interpret relationships

Quantitative can facilitate qualitative through locating interviewees and help with generalising findings

Together they can give you a micro and macro level versions and so you can examine the relationships between the two levels. They can complement each other.

Final words

To make it easier to understand the two different approaches, I sometimes tell students to think of TV detectives.

Induction - this is the method that CSI use. They find the evidence and then produce the theory on what happened.

Deductive logic - this is your more traditional detective. They have a hunch that someone murdered someone else and seek to prove it. Think Columbo, Murder She Wrote or even Inspector Morse.