What is the difference in the research objective between Qualitative versus quantitative study while writing a proposal?

Research is the vital tool to increase the knowledge about the study. There are two standard method of research in all field of science and social science, they are Qualitative and Quantitative research. Qualitative and Quantitative research provides a deep understanding of the problem in separate manner. Qualitative researches are often to be of understanding the personal views of the people, whereas quantitative researches are of concrete statistics and generalization of the population through the samples. However, there has been an increasing trend from early 90’s in combining the quantitative and qualitative research, which in turns delivers significant insights about the problem(Black, 1999). Further, there is always a confusion among the researchers to choose between the Qualitative and Quantitative research objective according to the phenomena considered. Thus, in this blog, I will list out the difference of Qualitative and Quantitative study in research perspective.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is a type of physical, empirical, exploratory, direct, and empathic research. It helps the researcher to understand the opinions, reasons, causes or trends that hide behind the data. The face to face interview method of data collection is the most commonly used method in qualitative research in which a small sample of respondents is interviewed for a long time, even for hours.

Quantitative research

Quantitative analysis lets the researcher to calculate, using empirical data or only data that can then be quickly converted into statistics, and it tests a wide sample of respondents’ behaviors, views and attitudes. The reason for collecting more sample is that if there is more data then the results will be more accurate(Denscombe, 2010). The Data collection methods takes various forms such as online surveys, telephonic surveys, etc. However, the most common method of data collection is that the telephonic research or web research and the time taken for this type of data collection will be approximately 10 minutes for each respondents.

Different research methods are used in Qualitative and Quantitative research to collect and analyze data, and allows the researcher to answer varioustypes of research questions.In order to write the valid research proposal, you should know the difference between the two types of research methods(Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). This list of difference allows the researcher to make the conclusion about which type of research they going to do and which method of data collection is suitable.

	QUALITATIVE RESEARCH	QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Concept	It is the characterisation of the believes about the phenomena	Exclusive attention is given in this type of research to the theory.
Approach	Naturalistic or Subjective	Experimental or Objective
Type of research	Exploratory research	Certain or conclusive research
Research theory	Inductive – here the researcher omits the theoretical background of the study	Deductive – here the research is based on justification of the proposed theory
Sampling	Purposive	Random
Data	Verbal	Measurable
Inquiry	Process-oriented	Result-oriented
Hypothesis	Generated	Tested
Elements of analysis	Words, pictures and objects	Numerical data
Objective	To explore and discover ideas used in the ongoing processes.	To examine cause and effect relationship between variables.
Methods	Non-structured techniques like In-depth interviews, group discussions etc.	Structured techniques such as surveys, questionnaires and observations.
Analysis type	Case based	Variable based
Result	Develops initial understanding	Recommends final course of action

Furthermore, in the quantitative research, the researchers will not involve in the interview process and the data collected based on different modes are then analysed to draw a valid conclusions. However, in the qualitative case, the researcher is directly involved in the data collection process. In qualitative research, only small sample size calculation is selected to understand the concept thoroughly, whereas in the quantitative study large samples are collected and generalize the results to the population. Quantitative research focus on testing theories or hypothesis whereas qualitative research formulate the theories or hypothesis(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Quantitative data is analysed using advanced mathematical and statistical tools and techniques whereas qualitative data is often the type of summarization and interpreting from it. Quantitative study needs large samples whereas qualitative requires small samples and the questionnaire is of multiple choice in quantitative and open-ended type in qualitative.

Data collection

Data can be collected for this two types of research in various ways and the main thing to keep in mind is that it should be helpful to answer the research questions(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Mostly, data collection may be either qualitative or quantitative. For instance, in case studies, the data can be in number like frequencies or rating scale, and in surveys, the data can be in the form of text, etc. Here, I will list out most common methods in both the research methods.

Quantitative data collection

• Experiments:Experimental variables can be controlled and used to identify the cause-and-effect relationships.
• Surveys:Survey questionnaire involves a list of multiple choice questions and the data can be collected through online mode, in person, or over the phone.
• Observations:In this case, the variables cannot be controlled and it is natural.

Qualitative data collection

• Interviews: The data is collected orally by asking open-ended questions to targeted samples.
• Ethnography: Observing the cultural behaviour closely in a community for long period.
• Focus groups:Gathering data from discussion among a group of people about a topic.
• Literature review:Collecting the already published works and making a review.

Conclusions

In summary, an innovative and interesting research is the one which include both the methods in the research together. However, there are certain research areas which require only one type of research as in few medical examinations and the selection of research methods is purely depend upon the researcher. Qualitative research is interpretative research whereas quantitative research is the concrete one. On the whole, I would suggest a rule thumb for selecting the right research method is that, if the researcher wants to confirm or test a theory or hypothesis then quantitative research is the key, and if the researcher wants to understand any concepts, thoughts, etc., then the qualitative research is the best tool. Further, it is recommended to the researchers to decide upon which method of research is need for the study, deeply understand the differences, and choose appropriately.

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