ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the main contrasting features of quantitative and qualitative research will be etched out. Much of the discussion in the literature on these two research traditions has created a somewhat exaggerated picture of their differences. These discussions reflect a tendency to treat quantitative and qualitative research as though they are mutually antagonistic ideal types of the research process. This tendency can be clearly discerned in some of the programmatic statements relating to qualitative research (e.g. J. Lofland, 1971; Bogdan and Taylor, 1975). While there are differences between the two research traditions, as the first section of this chapter will explicate, there are also a number of points at which the differences are not as rigid as the programmatic statements often imply. Consequently, in addressing some of the contrasting features in quantitative and qualitative research, some areas of similarity will also be appraised. The discussion will then proceed to an assessment of the degree to which epistemological issues lie at the heart of the contrast, or whether it is more a matter of different styles of data collection and analysis tout court. This issue has implications for the extent to which quantitative and qualitative research are deemed to be capable of integration (the focus of Chapter 6). It also has implications for the question of the extent to which quantitative and qualitative research constitute divergent models of the research process, since it has been the suggestion that they represent distinct epistemologies that has played a major role in the exaggeration of their differences. Finally, the question of whether these two research traditions share some common problems is examined. <target id="page_94" target-type="page">94</target>Some differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Research https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">

Quantitative

Qualitative

(1)

Role of qualitative research

preparatory

means to exploration of actors' interpretations

(2)

Relationship between researcher and subject

distant

close

(3)

Researcher's stance in relation to subject

outsider

insider

(4)

Relationship between theory/concepts and research

confirmation

emergent

(5)

Research strategy

structured

unstructured

(6)

Scope of findings

nomothetic

ideographic

(7)

Image of social reality

static and external to actor

processual and socially constructed by actor

(8)

Nature of data

hard, reliable

rich, deep