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
 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: Qualitative:
 Deductive  Inductive
 Tests  Produces
hypotheses theories
 Positivism  Phenomenology
 Objectivism  Constructionism
 Employs  Does not employ
measurement measurement
 Macro  Micro
 Detached  Involved researcher
researcher
 Quantitative and
Qualitative Methods

 Quantitative:  Qualitative:
Measures objective Constructs social
facts meaning
Focuses on Focus on interactive
variables processes
Value free Values are present
Reliability is key
Authenticity is key
Independent of
context Context constrained
Many cases Few cases
Statistical analysis Thematic 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. Theory
2. Hypothesis
3. Research design
4. Devise measures of concepts
5. Select research site(s)
6. Select research
subjects/respondents
7. Administer research instruments/
collect data
8. Process data
9. Analyse data
10. Write up findings and conclusions
 Main Steps in
Qualitative Research:
1. General research question
2. Select relevant site(s) and subjects
3. Collection of relevant data
4. Interpretation of data
5. Conceptual and theoretical work
6. Tighter specification of the research
question
7. Collection of further data
8. Conceptual and theoretical work
9. 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.