Differences between Qualitative and Quantitative - Research Paper Example

“Quantitative research is all about quantifying relationships between variables” (Hopkins, 2008). In a quantitative form of research, the researchers identify the association and links between an independent and a dependent variable in order to determine how rise or fall in one variable affects other variable. A very important point regarding quantitative research is that it requires researcher to have an in-depth understanding of statistics and statistical models. Without a sufficient amount of knowledge of statistics, researchers find it very difficult to produce statistical results based on large-scale surveys. However, all researchers are not very proficient in using statistical models, so most of the researchers opt to do qualitative research instead of putting themselves into trouble because of the complexities related to extensive statistical analysis of data. Today, qualitative research is more in practice as compared to quantitative research not only because it is simple to do but also because it provides information about all issues related to the research topic. Relationship with the Research Topic Understanding of the research topic also creates a big difference between qualitative research and quantitative research. Qualitative researchers and quantitative researchers have different approach towards the research because of different levels of understanding of the topic. In a qualitative research, the researchers are not very much aware of the details related to the topic....
Without a sufficient amount of knowledge of statistics, researchers find it very difficult to produce statistical results based on large-scale surveys. However, all researchers are not very proficient in using statistical models, so most of the researchers opt to do qualitative research instead of putting themselves into trouble because of the complexities related to extensive statistical analysis of data. Today, qualitative research is more in practice as compared to quantitative research not only because it is simple to do but also because it provides information about all issues related to the research topic. Relationship with the Research Topic Understanding of the research topic also creates a big difference between qualitative research and quantitative research. Qualitative researchers and quantitative researchers have different approach towards the research because of different levels of understanding of the topic. In a qualitative research, the researchers are not very much aware of the details related to the topic, which makes them interact personally with different people and organizations in order to gather required amount of information related to different aspects of the issue. “Qualitative research may be necessary in situations where it is unclear what exactly is being looked for in a study” (McGuigan, 2011). On the other hand, in a quantitative form of research, the researchers are usually independent of the research. They gather data about different variables involved in research and determine their level of dependency on each other based on a proper statistical analysis. Qualitative research is completely a fieldwork because a ...Show more