Essay On Qualitative And Quantitative Research

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Qualitative and quantitative research are methods used in Sociology to explain and describe data. However, these methods contrast in different relevant aspects.
According to Denscombe, M., (2010), even though, both quantitative and qualitative research use the same methods to collect the information, interviews, surveys, observations, as a primary data, and documents, as a secondary data; how the results are put and collected and how the method is conducted will determine the final result, whether to obtain qualitative or quantitative data.
On one hand, in quantitative research, the surveys are conducted through questionnaires. These are a set of questions to be asked to the respondent and are applied to test a theory. The questionnaire is
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Besides, these are highly reliable and give more support to other quantitative methods. These are useful to the researcher as they have a high response rate. Nevertheless, the participant cannot choose the questions and the answers are limited; therefore the participant would feel forced to answer. These are expensive as an interviewer is needed and time-consuming. Conversely, in quantitative, the interviews are informal, unstructured. The interviewers/interviewees are free to ask several questions. These are done to analyse sensitive issues (sexuality or crime) where feeling and thoughts are described. Due to this fact, unstructured interview has a high validity. Nevertheless, the result can be manipulated as the researcher can influence on the participant or vice versa besides the cultural background can influence both parts; therefore, the data is not reliable. William Labov (1972 cited in CGP, 2008) applied this method on assessing the Linguistic Deprivation over a working class children. This revealed when black working children were interviewed by a white person they became tense and spoke nervously; whereas when the interviewer was a black person, they became more articulate. This proves, how the researcher can influence over participant response. It is relevant to have in consideration how external factors can affect the process of collecting datum and its …show more content…
For instance, the experiments are done under scientific conditions in a laboratory, experiments. Through this, a hypothesis is tested. These are structured which means the researcher control the experiment and can be reproduced; therefore, these are beneficial as provide a high reliability. Nevertheless, these might not be valid as they are not conducted in a real setting, these have moral and ethical issues and participants change their behaviour through the study. By contrast, qualitative applies the participant observation, the setting is natural and the researchers get a direct viewpoint as they are actively involved in the study. Although, it cannot be redone, is expensive and time-consuming. Field experiments (ethnography) are done in a natural setting. These are valuable as show the real social interaction. However, this can bring an ethical problem as the “participants” are unaware of the study, hence the research needs to have their consent (Livesey, C., & Lawson, T.

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