Social life

Re:Topic 3 DQ 2

“Qualitative research is characterized by its aims, which relate to understanding some aspect of social life and its methods which (in general) generate words, rather than numbers, as data for analysis” (McCusker & Gunaydin, 2015). Qualitative research has an interpretative approach and is subjective. This style of research often sees the researcher spending many hours in direct personal contact with those being studied. This style of research is often referred to as an interpretative researcher; observing and recording amounts of information and understanding the meaning about everyday life. This method is using to answer the question of ‘why’ ‘what’, or ‘how’ experience than ‘how many’ or ‘how much’ which are answered by quantitative methods.

Quantitative research however, relies and builds on mathematical procedures and methods, such as frequency, quality, amount and statistical procedure. In this method, researcher use tools that includes questionnaire, or equipment to collect numerical data whereas qualitative methods involves analysis of data such as interviews, video, participation, group discussion, pictures and that’s how they based the final results or conclusion or their experiment. Qualitative method could less generalize and depends on skills use; however, quantitative method is more generalize and largely depends on measurement device.

Both methods are used in many research studies as well especially in medical field to evaluate effective results. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies can find practical details and reach a conclusion based on the reasoning and complexity in the data. In both methods, researcher strives to avoid error and false conclusion. Both methods are used to find out the answer of research questions and utilize the technique to verify the data and find the valid conclusion (Smith, 2013).

Reference

Smith, T. (2013). Qualitative and quantitative research. Research Starters: Education (Online Edition)

McCusker, K., & Gunaydin, S. (2015). Research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods and choice based on the research. Perfusion, 30(7), 537-542. doi:10.1177/0267659114559116