Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies

Most of the times students have to carry out a piece of work of doing research as a part of their course of study either for graduation or post graduation. And the same is for employees where they have do to a survey or research work for the collection of necessary data as per the needs of company. Whether you want to carry a research report or survey for your job or for your studies, here are some basic details that help all type of research organizers to cope with the basic knowledge of dealing with a survey or research work:

1. Research is a careful study of an area that aims to discover or establish useful information, principles, facts etc.
2. When it is about surveys for business success, the primary focus is on ‘give audience what they want.’ That is why it creates need for employees to research and create surveys to know about the current and modern needs of customers.
3. Research is an approach to understand behavior of the targeted audience.
4. It is a never ending or long lasting process. It tends to solve one set of questions but give rise to another set of question and the process just goes on with the rising of questions and searching for answers.
5. Primarily, there are two broad sectors of research. These sectors are academics and private.
6. Academics deals with the research work related to the field of education that focuses on the conduction of public sector research. This type of research follows theoretical or scholarly approach, such as the effect of mass media on individuals.
7. When a research is carried out by nongovernmental organizations, then the research is referred to as private sector research. They deal with the topics of the private sector such as consumer preferences, advertising & promotional campaigns, sales forecasting etc.
8. There are two major research methodologies – qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative method focuses on the outcome of human behavior or the behavior of audience. The quantitative methodology concentrates on the explanation of the phenomenon with the help of numerical or statistical data.

Qualitative and quantitative methods are carried via different ways. For example, interviews are conducted for qualitative research and phone, mail or internet surveys are conducted for quantitative researches. Herein, we will have in-depth discussion of both qualitative and quantitative methods of research.

Qualitative research: As discussed above, qualitative research focuses on a group (or groups), observations are carried out with the help of interviews and case studies. Qualitative research helps researcher to gain in-depth understanding of the matter as it allows researcher to dig into the process of investigation. It also provide an opportunity to the researcher to pursue some new areas of interest by going with the flow of investigation.

Major drawbacks of utilizing qualitative research methodology:

• Data reliability: Since the research focuses on a particular group, data reliability can be a problem as single observers are describing an event. In such case, researcher is closely connected with the targeted audience where the researcher can loose his or her focus from the main objective of the question.
• When a researcher digs into the information obtained from qualitative method, it can make researcher to pursue with some new information or questions of research that can further change the directions of research.
• Qualitative method of research often varies in sample size that sometimes becomes too small as one. Information that is collected from qualitative method is often used to pursue with quantitative analysis although the primary information needed for the study is collected via qualitative method.

Quantitative research: It undertakes various methods of data collection. The methods of data collection can be telephonic survey, internet survey, and mail survey. These surveys need questioning that further can be in the form of static or standardized. The targeted audience or the respondents are asked same questions and observation is done on the basis of their answers. Quantitative research helps to attain the results with greater precision. In daily routine life, different industries like media, politics, business and consumers uses methodology of surveys to reach a particular result. Surveys need planning and execution of sample selection and type of questionnaire or questionnaire design. The major advantage of doing survey is that it can help to analyze the problem in the context of reality. They can be conducted at affordable or reasonable prices. In fact, some online surveys are free of cost. Surveys can be conducted at any place irrespective of any geographical constraint.

Disadvantages of conducting surveys:

• It can be attended by any wrong responded. For instance, if a survey is conducted over the respondents of the age group of 18 to 30 then there might be chances that persons above the age of 30 or below the age of 18 are answering the questions of survey.
• Inappropriate wording of the questions can create bias results. For example, questions like In your free time, do you like to read books or just watch television? These type of questions can be biased as the words ‘just watch television’ means that watching television is less desirable or can be an inappropriate thing to answer.
• Questions can be in a form to embarrass the respondent. For example, on case of collection of any confidential detail, people may hesitate to declare their income or employment status, property status – whether owned or not etc.
• The way of questioning can confuse the respondent which further can decrease the chances of reaching at actual answer.

If you need more help on this topic, let makemyassignment.com do your work on your behalf. Makemyassignment.com is an online assignment service provider that helps students to cope-up with their academic stress. It let the students to submit an authentic assignment on the assigned topic that is free from any copied material. Whether it is about research, essay or any assignment making, makemyassignment.com helps you to score good by providing original content prior to deadlines.