Quantitative versus Qualitative Approaches © www.drcath.net, 2008

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

Hypotheses Confirmed or Rejected Deductive Theory Theory Hypotheses Data Collection Findings Hypotheses Confirmed or Rejected Revision of Theory This the most common view of the relationship between theory and social research. You develop a theory and test it. Induction is the opposite direction form deduction. Researcher infers the implications of his/her findings for the theory that prompted the whole exercise. The findings are fed back into the stock of theory. So theory is the outcome of research, while findings or observations are the outcome. Sometimes, you will use both: view of a theory may change after more reading of literature, new findings may be published by others before you have generated yours or the relevance of a set of data for a theory may become apparent after the data have been collected.

[General research question] Induction [General research question] Observation Theory Formulation Inductive theory starts with a vague concept then uses specific forms of observations of empirical evidence, on the basis of this, you generalise and build theories.

Home Exercise Deductive theory: Inductive 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 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 Constructs social meaning Focus on interactive processes Values are present Authenticity is key Context constrained Few cases Thematic analysis Quantitative: Measures objective facts Focuses on variables Value free Reliability is key Independent of context Many cases Statistical 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: Theory Hypothesis Research design Devise measures of concepts Select research site(s) Select research subjects/respondents Administer research instruments/ collect data Process data Analyse data Write up findings and conclusions

Main Steps in Qualitative Research: General research question Select relevant site(s) and subjects Collection of relevant data Interpretation of data Conceptual and theoretical work Tighter specification of the research question Collection of further data 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.