Social Research Methods Alan Bryman Social Research Methods Chapter 26: Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide

Introduction Distinction between quantitative and qualitative research remains useful But the connections between epistemological/ ontological commitments and research methods are not deterministic Research methods are more ‘free-floating’ than has been presumed Practicality of a method needs consideration Pages 621-622 2

The natural science model and qualitative research Characterization of the natural sciences as inherently positivistic Problems with this: No agreed epistemological basis of natural sciences: realism as an alternative (Bhaskar, 1975) Disparity between scientists’ written accounts and actual work practices (Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984) Negative connotations of ‘positivism’ (Platt, 1981) But even then, qualitative research is frequently characterised features that are usually associated with ‘natural science’: empiricism, a specific problem focus, hypothesis testing, and a tacit or explicit commitment to realism. Pages 622-623 3

Quantitative research, interpretivism and constructionism Quantitative researchers also study the social meanings people give to the world Surveys and questionnaires attempt to measure attitudes or elicit accounts of action/ events – all of which are issues of meaning Reports of qualitative research also rarely demonstrate that interpretative understanding has been achieved Quantitative content analysis can reveal patterns of representation in mass media texts Pages 624-625 4

Epistemological and ontological considerations Quantitative and qualitative research strategies tend to reflect different epistemological and ontological beliefs Some say these commitments are inevitable Choice of method reflects assumptions about the nature of knowledge and of social phenomena (Morgan & Smircich, 1980) But the dominance of mixed methods case study research blurs the link yet further Pages 625-626 5

Problems with the quantitative/ qualitative contrast Four dimensions of the contrast: Behaviour versus meaning Theory tested in research versus emergent from data Numbers versus words Artificial versus natural Pages 626-630

Behaviour versus meaning The distinction is sometimes drawn between a focus on behaviour and a focus on meanings However, quantitative research frequently involves the study of meanings in the form of attitude scales etc. Qualitative researchers often want to interpret people’s behaviour in terms of the norms, values, and culture of the group or community in question Quantitative and qualitative researchers are typically interested both in what people do and what they think, but go about the investigation of these areas in different ways Page 626

Theory tested in research versus emergent from data The suggestion that theory and concepts are developed prior to undertaking a study in quantitative research is true only up to a point Quantitative research is far less driven by a hypothesis-testing strategy than is frequently supposed, e.g. exploratory survey research The suggestion that quantitative research is concerned solely with the testing of ideas that have previously been formulated (such as hypotheses) fails to recognize the creative work that goes into the analysis of quantitative data and into the interpretation of findings Page 627

Numbers versus words Qualitative researchers sometimes undertake limited quantification of their data: To help uncover the generality of the phenomena being described (Silverman, 1984, 1985) So that greater precision into estimates of frequency can be given, using terms like ‘many’, ‘often’, and ‘some’ Page 628

Artificial versus natural Whereas quantitative research may be seen to give an artificial account of how the social world operates, qualitative research is often viewed as more naturalistic However, when qualitative research is based on interviews, the depiction ‘natural’ is possibly less applicable, because interviews and focus groups still have to be arranged and interviewees have to be taken away from their normal activities Pages 628,629

Reciprocal analysis Developments in quantitative and qualitative research allow each to be used to analyse the other: Qualitative analysis of quantitative data Quantitative analysis of qualitative data Pages 629-630

Qualitative analysis of quantitative data The writings of quantitative researchers can be treated as ethnographic accounts in themselves. Ethnostatistics (Gephart, 1988) treats statistics as rhetoric, becoming sensitive to the ways in which statistical arguments are deployed to bestow credibility on research for target audiences. Pages 629

Quantitative analysis of qualitative data ‘The fundamental contribution of the systematic analysis of documentary accounts is that it creates an analytic link between the in-depth accounts of professional observers and the statistical methods of quantitative researchers’ (Hodson 1999: 68) In other words, the application of quantitative methods to qualitative research may provide a meeting ground for the two research strategies Page 629

Quantification in qualitative research Thematic analysis (undertaking a search for themes in transcripts or field notes): The criteria employed in the identification of themes are often unclear (Bryman and Burgess, 1994) One possible factor is the frequency of occurrence of certain incidents, words, phrases, that denote a theme So a theme is more likely to be identified the more times the phenomenon it denotes occurs in the course of coding Thus a kind of implicit quantification may be in operation that influences the identification of themes and the elevation of some themes over others Page 631

Combating anecdotalism through limited quantification The publications of qualitative research are often seen as anecdotal Numbers can be used to give a fairly straightforward indication of the scale of the research project or to interpret the significance of qualitative data CAQDAS may make qualitative research more respectable within the scientific community (Ragin and Becker, 1994) Pages 631