Qualitative vs Quantitative Research Methods PDF

The Quantitative-Qualitative Divide  Class exercise – ❑Conduct a five minute observation of any interaction between two people. Write down everything you see, hear and feel during the five minutes, including your opinions of what is occurring. Remember to watch fo...

The Quantitative-Qualitative Divide  Class exercise – ❑Conduct a five minute observation of any interaction between two people. Write down everything you see, hear and feel during the five minutes, including your opinions of what is occurring. Remember to watch for body language, action, facial expression and tone of voice (if you are able to hear!) ❑Re-read your notes from the observation. Try to pick out what you included as opinion/interpretation and what was ‘objective fact’. ❑Look closely at your opinions/interpretations. Try to pick out the social, historical and cultural influences that they have been based on. Do you think someone from a different background would come to the same conclusions and interpretations that you did? Where might they differ? Lecture overview – The quantitative-qualitative divide; Definitions (recap); The development of qualitative research; The three methodological horrors.  The quantitative–qualitative divide ❑ The ‘Qualitative/Quantitative’ divide carves up the field of social and psychological research into allegedly separate and internally coherent approaches to research and theory ❑ The “divide” can be characterised as shown in the table on the next slide: See: Neuman (1994) Social Research Methods (3rd Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, p329.  Quantitative Qualitative (Involves) testing of hypothesis that the Capture and discovery of meaning once the researcher begins with researcher becomes immersed in the data Concepts are in the form of distinct Concepts are in the form of themes, motifs, variables generalizations, taxonomies Measures are systematically created before data Measures are created in an ad hoc manner and are often collection and are standardised specific to the individual setting or researcher Data are in the form of numbers from Data are in the form of words from precise measurements documents, observations, transcripts Theory is largely causal and deductive Theory can be causal or non-causal and is often inductive Procedures are standard, and Research procedures are particular, and replication is assumed replication is very rare Analysis proceeds by using statistics, tables or charts Analysis proceeds by extracting themes or generalizations and discussing how what they show relates to from evidence and organising data to present a coherent, hypotheses consistent picture  Definitions Revisited ❑ Commonality of definitions: most definitions at some stage or another, examine/compare qualitative methods against quantitative methods. ❑ “ Qualitative methods have emerged in psychology only fairly recently as an array of alternative approaches to those in the mainstream, and it is difficult to define, explain or illustrate qualitative research without counterposing it to those methods in psychology which rest upon quantification… “ (Parker, 1994, p.1)  Definitions Revisited ❑ Defining qualitative methodology is thus almost always an exercise in ‘negative definition’: one inevitably begins by stating what qualitative methodology is not. ❑ It is for this reason that understanding quantitative methodology, its assumptions and methods, is crucial. ❑ It is equally important to understand that qualitative methodology arose as a criticism of quantitative methodology, and was developed as a response aimed at addressing certain problematic issues of quantitative methodology.  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ Psychology was initially defined as the “science of the mind”. ❑ Like other branches of science, it followed the hypothetico- deductive model of research. ❑ Psychology thus aimed at discovering the laws/theory that governed the relationships between causes and effects.  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ Psyc embraced the empirical testing of theories (deductive logic) by quantitative methods – if the theory was proved incorrect it was rejected; if correct, accepted as truth; ❑ As hypotheses were tested, the theory was adjusted as necessary to accommodate new facts as they arose through experimentation.  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ In this way it was thought that eventually all false theories would be rejected and truth obtained; ❑ This approach dominated the twentieth century, and it does in fact, work in practice for the physical sciences; ❑ “Scientific method [is] considered to be superior to the other methods of acquiring knowledge because it allows us to make ‘objective’ observations of phenomena and thereby allows us to establish the superiority of one belief over the other” (Laher, 2001, p.7)  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ HOWEVER: The ‘scientific approach’ was not without its problems within psychology: e.g., ecological validity, ethical issues, volunteer characteristics, language and understanding, etc.  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ Parker (1994) summarised these problems into what he termed “The three methodological horrors” ❑ The three ‘horrors’ tend to revolve around the issues of context, meaning and interpretation i.e., THE GAP between reality and the way it is perceived/ captured/described, between objects and their representations.  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ This GAP is unacknowledged by science (& quantitative methodology), which attempts to give the ‘illusion’ of prediction and control; ❑ In fact, the history of quantitative research in psychology could be viewed as a catalogue of attempts to wish the gap away (Parker, 1992)...continued Qualitative methodology, on the other hand, makes a concerted effort to deal with each of these issues, and has built-in processes that acknowledge the existence of the GAP and attempt to bridge it; ▪Unlike quantitative research, which works against the GAP, qualitative research works with it.  The Three Methodological Horrors 1. Indexicality The idea that explanations are always tied to particular occasions or uses and will change with occasion (time) and context. 2. Inconcludability The idea that an account is always incomplete; it can always be supplemented and will mutate as it is added to. 3. Reflexivity The idea that the way we characterise a phenomenon will change the way it operates for us, and that will change our perception of the phenomenon, which will change our characterisation.  Indexicality The idea that explanations are always tied to particular occasions or uses and will change with occasion (time) and context Qualitative researchers admit their work is never perfectly replicable, and include an account of the changes over time in their report; Qualitative methods embrace specificity rather than generalisability and replicability, and emphasise the importance of context; Qualitative research aims at describing a specific context, rather than formulating general rules (idiographic).  Inconcludability The idea that an account is always incomplete; it can always be supplemented and will mutate as it is added to ❖ Qual. methods welcome change and openness and the opportunity for others to supplement an account; ❖ Results are always provisional; ❖ Qualitative research aims to tell a plausible story, rather than a complete one.  Reflexivity The idea that the way we characterise a phenomenon will change the way it operates for us, and that will change our perception of the phenomenon, which will change our characterisation; ▪ Qualitative methods treat subjectivity as a resource rather than a problem. ▪ An ‘objective account’ cannot be achieved, the researcher cannot pretend to be neutral. ▪S/he must interact and acknowledge the interaction, must know ‘him/herself’; ▪Through exploring the role of the researcher’s subjectivity in structuring the phenomena under investigation one can, however, achieve a fairly plausible, thorough and rounded account. ▪(Parker, 1994; Pitman, 2001)  The Development of Qualitative Research ❑ In this way, it is argued that qualitative research addresses the problems posed by the scientific method; ❑ “ The ‘crisis’ in psychology at the end of the 1960’s and beginning of the 1970’s was an expression of an awareness of the impossibility of dealing with interpretation by attempting to suppress it (Parker 1989, in Parker, 1994, p. 4); ❑ This was the ‘birth’ of qualitative methodology.  Discussion points – homework/class activity ❑ Discuss the differences between quantitative and qualitative methodologies. ❑ Look again at the differences you identified between quantitative and qualitative methodology in this lecture. How do these relate to Parker’s three horrors? ❑ Qualitative methodology is seen as the solution to the three horrors. Yet it has been pointed out that this ‘solution’ might have some problems of its own. Draw up a list of at least three weaknesses / limitations that might apply to qualitative research.