Strengths And Weaknesses Of Qualitative Research Essay

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Qualitative and Quantitative Research
In any research, there will be data. However, the decision to use qualitative or quantitative research will depend largely on the type data you are collecting and how that data will be used. Both qualitative research and quantitative research approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses. Researchers often rely on a combination of the two, to answer questions such as why and then scope it to how many. The two articles chosen to discuss the research approach are “ASP system utilization: customer satisfaction and user performance” by Lee, S. M., Lee, H., & Lee, S., (2007) and “Impact of information technology on quality management dimensions and its implications” by David, L. S., Wai, L., Ashley,
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Qualitative research attempts to answer more probing questions and is useful for describing complex occurrences. It is often used to build a narrative around an issue usually answering questions such as the reasons why or describing the way it is. Qualitative research can even determine how participants interpret constructs. However, there are some weaknesses to qualitative research as well. For example, a weakness of qualitative research is knowledge produced might not generalize to other people or other settings. It is more difficult to make qualitative predictions and test hypothesis with larger participant pools. Quantitative research allows the researcher to put items into buckets, or calculate statistics. Quantitative research is used for testing and validating already constructed theories about how and why phenomena occur and testing hypothesis before the data is collected. Quantitative research can generalize research findings when the data is based on random samples. Like qualitative research, there are some weaknesses to quantitative research as well. The researcher’s categories and theories that are used in testing may not reflect the participants understandings. The knowledge produced might be too abstract and general for direct application to specific situations, contexts, or …show more content…
Qualitative research explains questions such as what or why. Quantitative research answers questions such as how many, the number of customers affected, the number of changes, the frequency of an occurrence, and the average mean time to repair. Many managers communicate in quantitative ways preferring bullet points, charts, or graphs to illustrate numbers. Quantitative numbers helps draw a picture in ways that can be quickly conveyed to senior management. Senior management will then ask qualitative questions such as why or how. During an executive presentation, both types of analysis are typically

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