ABSTRACT
A quantitative or a qualitative paradigm, which should I choose? There is confusion in the social and health sciences about the difference between quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Much of the confusion about these paradigms, as indicated in chapter 1, comes from equating them with the way data are collected. Investigators often associate subjective methods of data collection, such as open-ended interviews, with the qualitative approach and objective methods of data collection with the quantitative approach. As we will see, however, the type of data collection cannot be used to distinguish adequately between the two different paradigms.
