www. csse.monash.edu.au/~ smarkham/ resources/ qual:htm Retrieved August 2011

CERG: computing education research group of Monash University

The world might be said to be made up of that which is relatively measurable and that which is relatively immeasurable. Different schools of thinking place different levels of emphasis on the very measurable and the very immeasurable. This is what has been the great debate between qualitative and quantitative approaches.

A qualitative approach refers to situations where you collect data in an unstructured way, for example using unstructured interview or collecting the diaries of subjects gives qualitative data. It is sometimes believed that using open, unstructured methods of data collection is the only way of having truly viable form of data.

Qualitative research: A method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed, rather than large samples.

The Assumptions of Qualitative Designs

1.                  Qualitative researchers are concerned primarily with process, rather than outcomes or products.

2.                  Qualitative researchers are interested in meaning, how people make sense of their lives, experiences, and their structures of the world.

3.                  The qualitative researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. Data are mediated through this human instrument, rather than through inventories, questionnaires, or machines.

4.                  Qualitative research involves fieldwork. The researcher physically goes to the people, setting, site, or institution to observe or record behavior in its natural setting.

5.                  Qualitative research is descriptive in that the researcher is interested in process, meaning, and understanding gained through words or pictures.

The process of qualitative research is inductive in that the researcher builds abstractions, concepts, hypotheses, and theories from details.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES

TO SOCIAL RESEARCH

Christina Hughes [e-mail]

Key characteristics of qualitative research:

· Events can be understood adequately only if they are seen in context. Therefore, a qualitative researcher immerses her/himself in the setting.

· The contexts of inquiry are not contrived; they are natural. Nothing is predefined or taken for granted.

· Qualitative researchers want those who are studied to speak for themselves, to provide their perspectives in words and other actions. Therefore, qualitative research is an interactive process in which the persons studied teach the researcher about their lives.

· Qualitative researchers attend to the experience as a whole, not as separate variables. The aim of qualitative research is to understand experience as unified.

· Qualitative methods are appropriate to the above statements. There is no one general method.

· For many qualitative researchers, the process entails appraisal about what was studied.

Sherman and Webb (1988):

Qualitative implies a direct concern with experience as it is `lived' or `felt' or `undergone' ... Qualitative research, then, has the aim of understanding experience as nearly as possible as its participants feel it or live it.

www. csse.monash.edu.au/~ smarkham/ resources/ qual:htm Retrieved August 2011

CERG: computing education research group of Monash University

            When you might emphasize Qualitative

          The likely indicators for emphasizing a qualitative approach are:

          Your interest is in the qualitative nature of the subjects' behaviors.

             You are searching out an area of interest and you cannot find anything much to guide you. So you need to get some sort of overview.  

You have a long term research program in view. You want to get a good feel for the scope of the variables which might be involved

Communication Research Methodologies: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology

By:  Dr. Duangtip Charoenruk

The aim of qualitative research is to describe certain aspects of a phenomenon, with a view to explaining the subject if study (Cormack, 1991). The methodology itself is also described as phenomenology (Duffy, 1985), or as a humanistic and idealistic approach (Leach, 1990), with itself its origins lying in the disciplines of history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology and psychology (Cormack, 1991).This historical foundation, which is not that of the physical science domain, has been cited as one of the great weaknesses of qualitative research.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES

TO SOCIAL RESEARCH

Christina Hughes [e-mail]

Qualitative approach, strengths and limitations

Limitations:

· The problem of adequate validity or reliability is a major criticism. Because of the subjective nature of qualitative data and its origin in single contexts, it is difficult to apply conventional standards of reliability and validity.

· Contexts, situations, events, conditions and interactions cannot be replicated to any extent nor can generalizations be made to a wider context than the one studied with any confidence.

· The time required for data collection, analysis and interpretation is lengthy.

· Researcher's presence has a profound effect on the subjects of study.

· Issues of anonymity and confidentiality present problems when selecting findings.

· The viewpoints of both researcher and participants have to be identified and elucidated because of issues of bias.

Strengths:

· Because of close researcher involvement, the researcher gains an insider's view of the field. This allows the researcher to find issues that are often missed (such as subtleties and complexities) by the scientific, more positivistic enquiries.

· Qualitative descriptions can play the important role of suggesting possible relationships, causes, effects and dynamic processes.

· Because statistics are not used, but rather qualitative research uses a more descriptive, narrative style, this research might be of particular benefit to the practitioner as she or he could turn to qualitative reports in order to examine forms of knowledge that might otherwise be unavailable, thereby gaining new insight.

· Qualitative research adds flesh and blood to social analysis.

THE ADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE METHODS IN INTERCULTURAL RESEARCH: PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FROM THE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE BY AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN MANAGERS

Alexei V. Matveev, 2002 (New York, USA)

Qualitative Method

Qualitative research shares the theoretical assumptions of the interpretative paradigm, which is based on the notion that social reality is created and sustained through the subjective experience of people involved in communication (Morgan, 1980). Qualitative researchers are concerned in their research with attempting to accurately describe, decode, and interpret the meanings of phenomena occurring in their normal social contexts (Fryer, 1991). The researchers operating within the framework of the interpretative paradigm are focused on investigating the complexity, authenticity, contextualization, shared subjectivity of the researcher and the researched, and minimization of illusion (Fryer, 1991).

Qualitative research in general is more likely to take place in a natural setting (Denzin, 1971; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Marshall & Rossman, 1989). This means that topics for study focus on everyday activity as "defined, enacted, smoothed, and made problematic by persons going about their normal routines" (Van Maanen, 1983, p. 255). Qualitative research is less likely to impose restrictive a priori classification on the collection of data. It is less driven by very specific hypotheses and categorical frameworks and more concerned with emergent themes and idiographic descriptions (Cassell & Symon, 1994).

Extending the fundamental beliefs of the interpretative paradigm, one can name three characteristics of qualitative inquiry. First, qualitative research is the study of symbolic discourse that consists of the study of texts and conversations. Second, qualitative research is the study of the interpretive principles that people use to make sense of their symbolic activities. Third, qualitative research is the study of contextual principles, such as the roles of the participants, the physical setting, and a set of situational events, that guide the interpretation of discourse (Ting-Toomey, 1984).

The strengths of the qualitative method include:

·                     Obtaining a more realistic feel of the world that cannot be experienced in the numerical data and statistical analysis used in quantitative research;

·                     Flexible ways to perform data collection, subsequent analysis, and interpretation of collected information;

·                     Provide a holistic view of the phenomena under investigation (Bogdan & Taylor, 1975; Patton, 1980);

·                     Ability to interact with the research subjects in their own language and on their own terms (Kirk & Miller, 1986);

·                     Descriptive capability based on primary and unstructured data;

The weaknesses of the qualitative method include:

·                     Departing from the original objectives of the research in response to the changing nature of the context (Cassell & Symon, 1994);

·                     Arriving to different conclusions based on the same information depending on the personal characteristics of the researcher;

·                     Inability to investigate causality between different research phenomena;

·                     Difficulty in explaining the difference in the quality and quantity of information obtained from different respondents and arriving at different, non-consistent conclusions;

·                     Requiring a high level of experience from the researcher to obtain the targeted information from the respondent;

·                     Lacking consistency and reliability because the researcher can employ different probing techniques and the respondent can choose to tell some particular stories and ignore others.

 

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES

TO SOCIAL RESEARCH

Christina Hughes [e-mail]

Quantitative approaches, strengths and weaknesses

STRENGTHS

· Precision - through quantitative and reliable measurement

· Control - through sampling and design

· Ability to  produce causality statements, through the use of controlled experiments

· Statistical techniques allow for sophisticated analyses

· Replicable

LIMITATIONS

· Because of the complexity of human experience it is difficult to rule out or control all the variables;

· Because of human agency people do not all respond in the same ways as inert matter in the physical sciences;

· Its mechanistic ethos tends to exclude notions of freedom, choice and moral responsibility;

· Quantification can become an end in itself.

· It fails to take account of people's unique ability to interpret their experiences, construct their own meanings and act on these.

· It leads to the assumption that facts are true and the same for all people all of the time.

· Quantitative research often produces banal and trivial findings of little consequence due to the restriction on and the controlling of variables.

· It is not totally objective because the researcher is subjectively involved in the very choice of a problem as worthy of investigation and in the interpretation of the results.

 

Wikipedia

Quantitative research

In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.

Quantitative research is used widely in social sciences such as psychology, economics, sociology, and political science, and less frequently in anthropology and history. Research in mathematical sciences such as physics is also 'quantitative' by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term relates to empirical methods, originating in both philosophical positivism and the history of statistics, which contrast qualitative research methods.

Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify, which of such hypotheses are true.

 

 Quantitative Methods in Education Research

Dr Ulrike Hohmann  Originally prepared by Professor John Berry
© J Berry, Centre for Teaching Mathematics, University of Plymouth, 2005

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Quantitative research methods were originally developed in the natural sciences to study natural phenomena. However examples of quantitative methods now well accepted in the social sciences and education includes:

·                     surveys;

·                     laboratory experiments;

·                     formal methods such as econometrics:

·                     Numerical methods such as mathematical modeling.

INGREDIENTS OF QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

·                     Describe variables in terms of distribution: frequency, central tendency and measures and form of dispersion. Descriptive statistics include averages, frequencies, cumulative distributions, percentages, variance and standard deviations, associations and correlations. Variables can be displayed graphically by tables, bar or pie charts for instance.
This may be all the statistics you need and you can make deductions from your descriptions. In fact univariate (one variable) analysis can only be descriptive.
But descriptive statistics can be used to describe a significant relationship between two variables (bivariate data) or more variables (multivariate).

·                     Infer significant generalisable relationships between variables. The tests employed are designed to find out whether or not your data is due to chance or because something interesting is going on.

www. csse.monash.edu.au/~ smarkham/ resources/ qual:htm Retrieved August 2011

CERG: computing education research group of Monash University

Quantitative

Quantitative approaches are those where you make measurements using some relatively well-defined measurement tool. This can be as tight as a well developed intelligence test or it can be as loose as an ad-hoc questionnaire.

Tightly developed quantitative devices have been developed through a rigorous application of psychometric theory. Emphasis has been placed on the reliability or stability of the measurement. A great deal of work should have been done on establishing validity.

Assuming that the theory behind doing the measurement is valid, and then a well developed quantitative tool should give you information in which you can have confidence.

The extreme of the quantitative approach is where people believe that all data should be tightly defined and validated; that any other data is purely exploratory and impressionistic.

The extreme of the extreme comes with those who believe that social research should be carried out with the same quantitative rigor as is supposed to exist in the physical sciences.

When you might emphasize the quantitative approach?

Some of the indicators for a quantitative approach are:

You are working with large samples - and you don't have the money for a large number of research support hours.

You have access to well defined tools developed elsewhere but which are appropriate to what you are doing.

You are doing research where you need data which will convince administrators or managers.

You are interested in being able to estimate or predict possible future performance on a large sample basis.

 

Communication Research Methodologies: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology

By:  Dr. Duangtip Charoenruk

Quantitative research is described by the terms ‘empiricism’ (Leach, 1990) and

‘positivism’ (Duffy, 1985). It derives from the scientific method used in the physical

sciences (Cormack, 1991). This research approach is an objective, formal systematic  

process in which numerical data findings. It describes, tests, and examines cause and

effect relationships (Burns & Grove,  1987), using a deductive process of knowledge

attainment (Duffy, 1985).

THE ADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE METHODS IN INTERCULTURAL RESEARCH: PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FROM THE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE BY AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN MANAGERS

Alexei V. Matveev, 2002 (New York, USA)

Quantitative Method

The functional or positivist paradigm that guides the quantitative mode of inquiry is based on the assumption that social reality has an objective ontological structure and that individuals are responding agents to this objective environment (Morgan & Smircich, 1980). Quantitative research involves counting and measuring of events and performing the statistical analysis of a body of numerical data (Smith, 1988). The assumption behind the positivist paradigm is that there is an objective truth existing in the world that can be measured and explained scientifically. The main concerns of the quantitative paradigm are that measurement is reliable, valid, and generalizable in its clear prediction of cause and effect (Cassell & Symon, 1994).

Being deductive and particularistic, quantitative research is based upon formulating the research hypotheses and verifying them empirically on a specific set of data (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1992). Scientific hypotheses are value-free; the researcher's own values, biases, and subjective preferences have no place in the quantitative approach. Researchers can view the communication process as concrete and tangible and can analyze it without contacting actual people involved in communication (Ting-Toomey, 1984).

The strengths of the quantitative method include:

·                     Stating the research problem in very specific and set terms (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1992);

·                     Clearly and precisely specifying both the independent and the dependent variables under investigation;

·                     Following firmly the original set of research goals, arriving at more objective conclusions, testing hypothesis, determining the issues of causality;

·                     Achieving high levels of reliability of gathered data due to controlled observations, laboratory experiments, mass surveys, or other form of research manipulations (Balsley, 1970);

·                     Eliminating or minimizing subjectivity of judgment (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996);

·                     Allowing for longitudinal measures of subsequent performance of research subjects.

The weaknesses of the quantitative method include:

·                     Failure to provide the researcher with information on the context of the situation where the studied phenomenon occurs;

·                     Inability to control the environment where the respondents provide the answers to the questions in the survey;

·                     Limited outcomes to only those outlined in the original research proposal due to closed type questions and the structured format;

·                     Not encouraging the evolving and continuous investigation of a research phenomenon.

Merriam, S. B. (1988). Case study research in education:

 

Quantitative Mode		Qualitative mode
Assumptions ·                     Social facts have an objective reality  ·                     Primacy of method  ·                     Variables can be identified and relationships measured  ·                     Etic (outside's point of view)		Assumptions ·                     Reality is socially constructed  ·                     Primacy of subject matter  ·                     Variables are complex, interwoven, and difficult to measure  ·                     Emic (insider's point of view)
Purpose ·                     Generalizability  ·                     Prediction  ·                     Causal explanations		Purpose ·                     Contextualization  ·                     Interpretation  ·                     Understanding actors' perspectives
Approach  ·                     Begins with hypotheses and theories ·                     Manipulation and control  ·                     Uses formal instruments  ·                     Experimentation  ·                     Deductive  ·                     Component analysis  ·                     Seeks consensus, the norm  ·                     Reduces data to numerical indices  ·                     Abstract language in write-up		Approach  ·                     Ends with hypotheses and grounded theory  ·                     Emergence and portrayal  ·                     Researcher as instrument  ·                     Naturalistic  ·                     Inductive  ·                     Searches for patterns  ·                     Seeks pluralism, complexity  ·                     Makes minor use of numerical indices  ·                     Descriptive write-up
Researcher Role ·                     Detachment and impartiality  ·                     Objective portrayal		Researcher Role ·                     Personal involvement and partiality  ·                     Empathic understanding
Axioms About	Positivist Paradigm (Quantitative)		Naturalist Paradigm (Qualitative)
The nature of reality	Reality is single, tangible, and fragmentable.		Realities are multiple, constructed, and holistic.
The relationship of knower to the known	Knower and known are independent, a dualism.		Knower and known are interactive, inseparable.
The possibility of generalization	Time- and context-free generalizations (nomothetic statements) are possible.		Only time- and context-bound working hypotheses (idiographic statements) are possible.
The possibility of causal linkages	There are real causes, temporally precedent to or simultaneous with their effects.		All entities are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping, so that it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects.
The role of values	Inquiry is value-free.		Inquiry is value-bound.

 

Research with Subjects (Quantitative)	Research with Informants (Qualitative)
1. What do I know about a problem that will allow me to formulate and test a hypothesis?	1. What do my informants know about their culture that I can discover?
2. What concepts can I use to test this hypothesis?	2. What concepts do my informants use to classify their experiences?
3. How can I operationally define these concepts?	3. How do my informants define these concepts?
4. What scientific theory can explain the data?	4. What folk theory do my informants use to explain their experience?
5. How can I interpret the results and report them in the language of my colleagues?	5. How can I translate the cultural knowledge of my informants into a cultural description my colleagues will understand?

 

Wikipedia

Data Collection:

In the academic social sciences the most frequently used qualitative research approaches include the following:

1.                  Ethnographic Research, used for investigating cultures by collecting and describing data that is intended to help in the development of a theory. This method is also called “ethno methodology” or "methodology of the people". An example of applied ethnographic research is the study of a particular culture and their understanding of the role of a particular disease in their cultural framework.

2.                  Critical Social Research, used by a researcher to understand how people communicate and develop symbolic meanings.

3.                  Ethical Inquiry, an intellectual analysis of ethical problems. It includes the study of ethics as related to obligation, rights, duty, right and wrong, choice etc.

4.                  Foundational Research, examines the foundations for a science, analyses the beliefs and develops ways to specify how a knowledge base should change in light of new information.

5.                  Historical Research, allows one to discuss past and present events in the context of the present condition, and allows one to reflect and provide possible answers to current issues and problems. Historical research helps us in answering questions such as: Where have we come from, where are we, who are we now and where are we going?

6.                  Grounded Theory, is an inductive type of research, based or “grounded” in the observations or data from which it was developed; it uses a variety of data sources, including quantitative data, review of records, interviews, observation and surveys.

7.                  Phenomenology, describes the “subjective reality” of an event, as perceived by the study population; it is the study of a phenomenon.

8.                  Philosophical Research, is conducted by field experts within the boundaries of a specific field of study or profession, the best qualified individual in any field of study to use an intellectual analyses, in order to clarify definitions, identify ethics, or make a value judgment concerning an issue in their field of study.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES TO SOCIAL RESEARCH, THE COMBINED APPROACH, Adopted from Punch, 1998

Eleven ways to combine qualitative and quantitative research

1. Logic of triangulation. The findings from one type of study can be checked against the findings deriving from the other type. For example the results of a qualitative investigation might be checked against a quantitative study.

2. Qualitative research facilitates quantitative research. Qualitative research may: help to provide background information on context and subjects; act as a source of hypotheses; aid scale construction.

3. Quantitative research facilitates qualitative research. Usually this means quantitative research helping with the choice of subjects for a qualitative investigation.

4. Quantitative and qualitative research are combined in order to provide a general picture. Quantitative research may be employed to plug the gaps in a qualitative study which arise because, for example the researcher cannot be in more than one place at any one time. Or if not all issues are amenable solely to a quantitative or a qualitative investigation.

5. Structure and process. Quantitative research is especially efficient at getting at the structural features of social life while qualitative studies are usually stronger on process aspects.

6. Researchers' and subjects' perspectives. Quantitative research is usually driven by the researcher's concerns, whereas qualitative research takes the subject's perspective.

7. Problem of generality. The addition of some quantitative evidence may help generalizability.

8. Qualitative research may facilitate the interpretation of relationships between variables. Quantitative research readily allows the researcher to establish relationships among variables, but is often weak when it comes to exploring the reasons for those relationships. A qualitative study can be used to explain the factors underlying the broad relationships.

9. Relationship between macro and micro levels. Employing both quantitative and qualitative research may provide a means of bridging the macro-micro gulf. Qualitative research can tap large-scale structural features of social life while qualitative research tends to address small-scale behavioral aspects.

10. Stage in the research process. Use at different stages of a longitudinal study.

11. Hybrids. Use of qualitative research is a quasi-experimental quantitative study.

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