Quantitative Vs Qualitative methods
Quantitative methods are generally used by positivists because they try to produce contributory explanations or even scientific laws regarding the world. They do not simply support the concept of natural science in their ontology and epistemology, but also use the same techniques. Yet, their methods frequently result in numbers, which are subsequently analysed for a final report or result. They aim to have no interpretation in the analysis but exact and direct causations which are indisputable. The advantages of this method are that the data could be grouped, condensed, and subjected to statistical analyses. As long as these data are from large representative samples, the results might eventually be generalised …show more content…
Their ontological and epistemological position regarding society is that the world is simply socially constructed and all knowledge that we could possess about it, is subject to interpretation (Cohen et al., 2011). Interpretists employ focus groups, interviews and other qualitative means to get an in-depth sight into an area of study. The aim is to explore or find out the meaning of social behaviour. The main benefit of the qualitative method is that it focuses on the discovery of new philosophies or concepts and unexpected occurrences. Such study aids focus novel questions, produce theories, develop valuable measures, and formulate grounded concept ( Cresswell, 2009). However, due to the small-scale empirical nature of majority of qualitative researches, it is generally not possible to collect large data from a single research to carry out straight statistical analyses. Whereas the in-depth of information gathered could not be disputed, researchers using qualitative methods have to accept that their work is hard to measure in terms of reliability, validity and to generalise as researchers with only case study data for example might have issue in debating the validity of their study results. Indeed issue of generalisation is still outstanding (Gavin 1998), as there have been no real way-out of this matter. Yet, there have been attempts to solve this issue. For instance, Lunt and Livingstone (1996), claim that this critique truly does not apply to qualitative methods as questions of validity and reliability are inextricably connected to quantitative approaches, therefore not relevant to qualitative work. One may, in return dispute that the concepts of social communication including the context dependent nature of meaning (Lunt & Livingstone 1996) are in turn inextricably connected to qualitative work and could therefore not be relevant to quantitative methods. The argumentation endorses
Quantitative methods are generally used by positivists because they try to produce contributory explanations or even scientific laws regarding the world. They do not simply support the concept of natural science in their ontology and epistemology, but also use the same techniques. Yet, their methods frequently result in numbers, which are subsequently analysed for a final report or result. They aim to have no interpretation in the analysis but exact and direct causations which are indisputable. The advantages of this method are that the data could be grouped, condensed, and subjected to statistical analyses. As long as these data are from large representative samples, the results might eventually be generalised …show more content…
Their ontological and epistemological position regarding society is that the world is simply socially constructed and all knowledge that we could possess about it, is subject to interpretation (Cohen et al., 2011). Interpretists employ focus groups, interviews and other qualitative means to get an in-depth sight into an area of study. The aim is to explore or find out the meaning of social behaviour. The main benefit of the qualitative method is that it focuses on the discovery of new philosophies or concepts and unexpected occurrences. Such study aids focus novel questions, produce theories, develop valuable measures, and formulate grounded concept ( Cresswell, 2009). However, due to the small-scale empirical nature of majority of qualitative researches, it is generally not possible to collect large data from a single research to carry out straight statistical analyses. Whereas the in-depth of information gathered could not be disputed, researchers using qualitative methods have to accept that their work is hard to measure in terms of reliability, validity and to generalise as researchers with only case study data for example might have issue in debating the validity of their study results. Indeed issue of generalisation is still outstanding (Gavin 1998), as there have been no real way-out of this matter. Yet, there have been attempts to solve this issue. For instance, Lunt and Livingstone (1996), claim that this critique truly does not apply to qualitative methods as questions of validity and reliability are inextricably connected to quantitative approaches, therefore not relevant to qualitative work. One may, in return dispute that the concepts of social communication including the context dependent nature of meaning (Lunt & Livingstone 1996) are in turn inextricably connected to qualitative work and could therefore not be relevant to quantitative methods. The argumentation endorses