Breaking Down the Quantitative Qualitative Divide

1
Breaking Down the Quantitative / Qualitative
Divide

• Chapter 14

2
Introduction

• A distinction between quantitative and
  qualitative research has been emphasized
• This distinction has been maintained because
• There are differences between a quantitative and
  qualitative research strategy and many
  researchers and writers on research methodology
  perceive this distinction
• It is a useful means of organizing research
  methods and approaches to data

3

• While epistemological and ontological commitments
  may be associated with certain research methods,
  the connections are neither fixed or
  deterministic
• Within each of the two research
  strategies-quantitative and qualitative there
  is a distinctive mix of epistemology, ontology,
  and research methods

4
The Natural Science Model and Qualitative Research

• Chief difficulty in linking issues of
  epistemology and research methods is the frequent
  characterization of the natural sciences as
  inherently positivist in orientation

5

• Three notable difficulties in characterizing the
  natural sciences as inherently positivist
• There is no agreement on the epistemological
  basis of the natural sciences
• Discussions of natural science assume a close
  correspondence between their practices and those
  that appear in their written accounts of what
  they do
• The term positivist is frequently used in a
  polemical way, usually as a criticism of
  anothers work

6

• Aside from the difficulties linking a natural
  science model and positivism, there are problems
  associating the two terms solely with
  quantitative research

7

• Quantitative research frequently exhibits
  features associated with a natural science model
• empiricist overtones
• a specific problem focus
• hypothesis and theory-testing
• realism

8
Quantitative Research and Interpretivism

• At first glance it may look as though qualitative
  analysis has a near-monopoly on the ability to
  study meaning
• Quantitative analysis, however, frequently
  addresses meaning through social surveys and
  questionnaires

9

• May be argued that survey questions do not really
  tap into issues of meaning because they are based
  on categories devised by the researcher, however
• Notion that qualitative research is better at
  gaining access to meaning is generally assumed
  rather than demonstrated
• If the design of attitude questions is based on
  prior questioning, attitudinal questions can come
  closer to gaining access to meaning

10
Research Methods and Epistemological and
Ontological Considerations

• Some writers suggest that research methods carry
  with them a full cluster of epistemological and
  ontological commitments
• e.g., a self-completion questionnaire means that
  the researchers is selecting a natural science
  model and objectionist worldview

11

• There is no perfect correspondence between
  research strategy and matters of epistemology and
  ontology

12

• Research methods are much more free-floating
  because
• Even when there are discernible links between
  research methods and assumptions about knowledge,
  the connections are not absolute
• Both quantitative and qualitative research
  methods are often employed within a single piece
  of research

13
Problems with the Quantitative/ Qualitative Divide

• Behaviour versus meaning
• Theory and concepts tested in research versus
  their emerging from data
• Numbers versus words
• Artificial versus natural

14
The Mutual Analysis of Quantitative and
Qualitative Research

• A quantitative research approach can be used to
  analyze qualitative data
• A qualitative research approach can be used to
  analyze the rhetoric of quantitative researchers

15
Quantification in Qualitative Research

• In most instances there is quantification in
  qualitative research
• Three observations about quantification in the
  analysis and writing-up of qualitative data
• thematic analysis
• quasi-quantification in qualitative research
• combating anecdotalism through limited
  quantification