Quantitive and Qualitive Research Comparison

Quantitive and Qualitive Research Comparison

Have you ever taken a survey or been part of a poll? Have you seen statistics and

wondered how they arrived at those numbers? Has anyone in a professional field ever asked you

how a particular event in your life made you feel? Did you know those are different kinds of

research being performed? As a matter of fact, these are called Quantitive and Qualitive

Research. I will describe each one in detail, give examples, the strengths and limitations of each

type, and explain the relationship between the two.

First I would like to discuss Quantitive Research. Quantitive Research is the study of

whole populations as if there were one singular reality. The results from this type of research are

described in statistics and numerical values. There are two types of methods used in Quantitive

Research, Experiment and Correlation. I would like to go a little more into the detail of the

method that is the most powerful of the two, Experiment. The experiment method gives "hard

numbers, and casual information". In this method, researchers manipulate or control variables.

The different variables of the experiment method are independent and dependent. The

independent variable is an aspect of the experiment that is manipulated or controlled by the

researcher. The dependent variable is behavior attempted to be predicted by the researcher. An

example of a psychological question Quantitive research may answer is "what morning are

people more tired, Saturday morning or Monday morning?" or "do left handed people make

more left turns or right turns while driving their car?". These types of questions must be

answered by a large population of people to complete calculations and come up with the

numerical percentiles that Quantitive research demands. As with anything in life, Quantitive

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research has its pros and cons, or strengths and limitations. One strength of Quantitive research is

it provides calculated hard numbers, facts. It allows the researcher to determine the cause/effect

and