Qualitative Research Methods
- Focus: Explores subjective experiences, meanings, and perspectives of individuals or groups.
- Data Collection: Involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, observations, document analysis, and open-ended surveys.
- Data Analysis: Interprets data through thematic analysis, discourse analysis, or grounded theory.
- Approach: Inductive, where patterns and theories emerge from the data.
- Goal: Uncover rich insights, understand complex social phenomena, and gain a deeper understanding of human behavior.
- Characteristics:
- Subjective and interpretive
- Focuses on experiences and meanings
- Emphasizes context and complexity
- Produces narrative or conceptual results
- Often exploratory and hypothesis-generating
Quantitative Research Methods
- Focus: Examines objective data, numbers, and statistical relationships.
- Data Collection: Employs surveys, experiments, and structured observations.
- Data Analysis: Uses statistical techniques such as regression, analysis of variance, and hypothesis testing.
- Approach: Deductive, where hypotheses are tested based on existing theories.
- Goal: Draw conclusions about populations, establish cause-and-effect relationships, and generalize findings.
- Characteristics:
- Objective and numeric
- Focuses on measurements and correlations
- Emphasizes replication and generalizability
- Produces hard data and quantifiable results
- Often confirmatory and hypothesis-testing
Key Differences:
| Feature | Qualitative Methods | Quantitative Methods |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Experiences, meanings | Data, numbers |
| Data Collection | In-depth interviews, observations | Surveys, experiments |
| Data Analysis | Thematic analysis, grounded theory | Statistical techniques |
| Approach | Inductive | Deductive |
| Goal | Understand perspectives, develop insights | Test hypotheses, generalize findings |
| Results | Contextualized, rich insights | Numeric, quantitative results |
| Subjectivity | Subjective interpretation | Objective measurement |
| Generalizability | Limited generalizability | High generalizability |
| Sample Size | Relatively small | Relatively large |