Qualitative research is useful in the early stages of a study when the researcher may be uncertain of what to be studied or what to focus on. This type of research does not require a specific plan before it begins. The researcher has freedom to let the study open out more naturally. Another advantage of qualitative research is that it gives more thorough data in the shape of complete descriptions in written form or visual evidence, such as photographs. This type of research looks at context and social meaning and how it affects individuals, which is beneficial mostly in the social sciences. The disadvantage of qualitative research is the interpretation of researcher s’ own biased view, which can misinterpret the facts. Another disadvantage is that this research method is very time consuming.
Quantitative research allows assessing and analyzing data. The association between an independent and dependent variable is studied in detail. Quantitative research can be used to test hypotheses in trials since it is effective in measuring data gathered from the statistics. The main disadvantage of quantitative research is that a large sample of the population must be studied; the larger the sample of people researched, the more statistically accurate the results will be. However, during quantitative research larger samples can be time consuming and expensive. In some cases the misuse of sampling and weighing can undermine the results completely.
An advantage of using both methods would be combination of the data analyzing techniques; with qualitative research the