Is Qualitative or Quantitative research better?Īlright, so you have these two methods of research – which is better? So instead of observing and talking to people and then forming a theory about what’s going on, you collect your data, and then make conclusions about the validity of your hypothesis based on that data. With quantitative research, you’re interested in gathering data that support and prove or disprove a hypothesis or theory you already have. You can conduct quantitative research by looking at statistical data (how many people did x), giving people multiple choice or true/false tests, asking them yes/no questions on a survey, and so on.Īll in all, you’re trying to answer the question “what” or “how” – what something is, what’s the number of people who order from Amazon every day, how many cars are in that parking lot.īecause of the nature of the data and collection methods, context isn’t a factor in this type of research. How do you conduct quantitative research? You can't measure these data – they're opinion and experience-based. Unstructured data, on the other hand, would include the food blogger's little story about how they discovered or created the recipe, what people have said about how delicious it is, and how much they love the texture of those soft, gooey cookies. These are all quantifiable (and measurable with numbers/facts) things. The structured data are things like the ingredients, the oven temperature, how many calories a serving has, and how long you cook the food. Let's say you're looking at a recipe on your favorite online cooking blog. Instead of asking someone why they do something, you’re finding out what they do, or how many people do that thing, or how often – and so on. Instead of talking to people and getting their opinions, you’re asking them yes or no questions. Think data you can put in a spreadsheet and analyze. Quantitative research, on the other hand, involves collecting facts and figures and often results in numerical, structured data.
Things that are hard to quantify with numbers or measure with figures. You can also make observations from photographs or from watching people – things like the way people are looking at each other lovingly, or how two old people might hold hands while they watch TV.įrom these observations, you can theorize that those people love each other, are close to each other, know each other well and are comfortable around each other, and so on. They’re not just responding “yes” or “no” – they’re telling you what they think. When you engage with people in these ways, you’re giving the opportunity to give more in-depth, elaborate responses. Doing interviews, setting up focus groups, giving people open-ended questionnaires, studying photo collections, and observing people in their daily routines are all forms of qualitative data collection. You can conduct qualitative research in a few different ways. This gives you insights into their behavior, beliefs, opinions, and so on. When you’re researching a group, you want to study them in their natural environment. Qualitative research focuses on the human perspective, and usually answers the question “why?” If you want to learn how people perceive their environment, why they hold certain beliefs, or how they understand their problems, you’ll conduct qualitative research.
#Qualitative data analysis methods examples how to
Now let’s get more into the details of qualitative and quantitative research so you know how to conduct each. Alright that one’s a bit more of a stretch, but it works. On the other hand, qualitative data gives you more insight into what people think, feel, and believe – the quality of a thing, person, or situation. That’s all about quantity (sounds like quantitative, right?). Well, here’s a quick and easy way to remember at least the basic difference: quantitative data deals with quantities of things – numbers and measurable information, like how many people visit a website each day. So what’s the difference between these two data types?
When you’re conducting research, your data will fall into two categories: qualitative or quantitative.
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