Analysing Research Approaches: Qualitative Vs Quantitative

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015 Last Modified: 25 Apr 2017

Qualitative research deals about the nature of any object or project which we are doing, the development of any object will depend on its quality first. Qualitative research means, it is a meaning and understanding research. The method employed is open-end questions, text data and emerging approaches. And it is in the form of words and pictures. Quantitative research is the process of determining the values by examining its numerical measurement characteristics. Quantitative research means, it is a measurement and explanation research. The method employed is closed-ended questions approach and numeric data. it is in the form of numbers and statistics data.

First of all we want to clear about the outcomes which we are expecting from the project, before doing research on that project, and research means finding the different answers for particular question. It is not at all waste of time, when we get the different output from what we expected from a project. There are so many outputs for particular tasks, in that we will get one output. We want a broad view on the area that we are researching, because the researcher want to answer several questions in which he was doing research.

It can explain in the form of words and text data. So many different methodologies come under the qualitative research though the procedures include knowledge claims, method of data collection and analysis. & naturally it takes place. Qualitative data is data whose values are non-numeric categories. It gives the detailed description and it process data that contribute to in-depth way to understanding. It is a naturalist paradigm.

It explains in the form of numeric data. From the surveys it generates the statistical data. Quantitative approaches work is to test hypotheses and identify differences between the groups, and there are four characteristics of quantitative analysis, they are 1) objective 2) systematic 3) logical 4) reliable. Quantitative data is the data whose values are counts or numeric measurements. It is a positivist paradigm.

Finally coming to compare both qualitative research and quantitative research, nobody can tell which is the best method in both of these to work on project. We can’t tell which the best method is because both methods have its own advantages and disadvantages[3]. According to my opinion, both the qualitative research and quantitative research methods are important and we want to choose the methodology which is suitable for the project.

It is the main point, we want to discuss here. It gives the brief explanation about qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis and the background relating to them. Quantitative research gives the information from the public by communicating with them; it is well suited to establish effect relationships. Qualitative research gives the information in detailed and it process data that contribute to in-depth way.

Quantitative studies are two types, they are descriptive and analytical. Analytical deals with the relation between the effect and cause. Descriptive means it is a document prepared from survey. This research depends upon the time factor and it deals with number and objective[3]. It is used to find how many people think in the similar way, for these they conduct a survey for few numbers of interviews. It has some advantages and disadvantages, advantages are the outputs are similarly, the

Here we are discussing about the differences between both qualitative research method and quantitative research method. Qualitative research explains complete and detailed description, where as quantitative research explains only some features. In qualitative research during research researchers can’t know exactly what they are getting, where as in quantitative research the researchers can know clearly in advance, that what they are looking for. Data in qualitative research is in the form of words and pictures, where as in quantitative research it is in the form of numbers and statistics.

Qualitative approach or research means, it is a meaning and understanding research, where as quantitative research, it is a measurement and explanation research. Qualitative research is a open system, example: ecological validity and quantitative research is a closed system, example: experimental control. Qualitative research is subjective and it will test the theory, Quantitative research is objective and it develops the theory.

Quantitative research, in this the data is more efficient and able to generalised but it is not much detailed like qualitative, where as data in qualitative research inefficient and less able to generalised. Quantitative research uses the instruments to collect the data and it is measured, where as qualitative research uses communication and observations to collect data and it can be observed but not measured. Qualitative research is naturalist paradigm and quantitative research is positive paradigm. Some examples for quantitative and qualitative researches are independent analysis, factor analysis, statistical analysis and narrative analysis, content analysis respectively[1].

Qualitative research takes it into in-depth interviewing and individual analysis, quantitative research method it can’t gain the opportunities from individual experience, because they are based on the surveys and closed questions where there is no chance to individual person to say his ideas in detail. Qualitative is the framework for getting the research evidence. This qualitative research method is useful in some govt departments also, for example qualitative method is used in the govt social research, and by this they can take a review of quality standards in quality evaluation methods. Finally the aim of the project is to produce guidance for research and evaluation that uses qualitative methods. Qualitative and quantitative research methods are also used in the engineering studies; in the electronics we have so many circuits that consists the resistors, capacitors, etc. In that qualitative research method will collect the details about the components, after collecting the matter we can design the circuit easily, after that by using quantitative research method can obtained by doing some experiments on that.

Until now we had discussed about the two research approaches that are qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, their differences and we also studied about the method in the approaches of their outcomes. These both approaches had their own significance and both are very important. The matter about these approaches are helpful me for my further studies and for practical approaches.