Choosing Quantitative or Qualitative Research Method

Research methods broadly split between qualitative and quantitative methods. The selection of research method depends upon the question of research under study. Moreover, it depends upon your skills, preferences and philosophy of research. Many times the problem occurs while deciding whether to choose the quantitative approach or qualitative approach. The question arises when the market researcher used the quantitative method and when to use the qualitative method. Which type is better than another is?In addition, whether one approach is better than other or both are equally important to conduct any research.

While staring any thesis or dissertation students use to think about the selection of approach, they could not understand which approach to use due to the incapability to differ from the other approach. Moreover, students are not competent and they do not have enough understanding and knowledge about the quantitative and qualitative approach. The researcher should understand that the choice between the two methods depends upon the topic under research and the research questions that they want to answer. There is a difference between the qualitative approach and quantitative approach. When writing a research paper or dissertation with help of dissertation writing services, students should first understand these two concepts.

It is simple to identify and define the quantitative research. In quantitative research, the data produced is numerical. The data are analysed by using statistical methods and mathematical methods. If numbers are not involved, then that study is not based on quantitative research. Some studies clearly lend themselves to the quantitative approach because they are available in numbers. The examples of the quantitative research can be number of managers who are master degree holders. However, it is not written in numerical form, but it clearly tells that data will be based on numerical or numbers.

Another example of the quantitative research might be to carry out statistical analysis of the ideas and opinion of the people to elements of their lives and to get the opinion of the particular issue. The qualitative approach includes the secondary data, observations and surveys. Surveys can be conducted by phone, person face-to-face and online. They may rely on the same types of questions that can be used on any type of survey whether it is by phone or conducted online.

Secondary data involve the accounts of the company, pervious literature or record, history and other relevant data that involves previous research. Qualitative research involves the numerical data or numbers. Frequently it involves the language or words and it may use observations and photographs. Qualitative methods are preferred in European and Britain, countries for the investigation. Qualitative analysis provides the in depth information and rich data that is useful to explore why and how things have happened. Qualitative data can also be gathered through interviews, post cards or focus groups.

Qualitative data are gathered through a large number of sources that can be different in scope, therefore there are different methods to analyse them. Most of the methods involve the coding and structuring of data in themes and groups.