Quantitative vs. Qualitative

Qualitative Vs. Quantitative

This paper will discuss two specific types of research methods those types can be identified as qualitative and quantitative. Often times many people get the two confused and believe the terms can be used interchangeably however that is not the case. I have always been a numbers person and for that reason I prefer quantitative. I prefer having the numbers available to determine what can be expected in the future. The reason I prefer this method is because you generally end up with data reduced to numbers where as qualitative you usually do not end up with numbers. Quantitative is typically used to support or expand on an existing theory where qualitative is used to develop a new theory that did not exist before.

The qualitative method entails gathering information that is not in numerical form. Some examples of collected information could be open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and diary accounts. This data can be very descriptive and often times hard to analyze. Often times expert knowledge is required to interpret the data. Quantitative methods can be used to construct graphs of raw data. Closed questions or a rating scale provide quantitative data because it produces numerical data.

There are pros and cons to each type of research method. When looking at quantitative research methods some of the pros are that it enables one to determine the value of markets and in turn allows one to produce profit projections. Additionally the results that are obtained are reliable based on statistical data. When reviewing the pros of qualitative research methods it provides the possibility of discovering things are not known. This type of method can also identify lines that may be effective for promotional use.

Often times one must question whether the pros outweigh the cons. There are a number of cons for each research message. For the qualitative research method it can be viewed as very subjective and often times will require researchers who are skilled and experienced to collect unbiased results and interpret them. Regarding quantitative the there are a number of additional concerns that arise some of those are regarding a lack of in-depth understanding also sometimes will be left unlikely to discover new information if they have been overlooked. Both methods can be effective and the method used may very on the intended use.