Problem
Qualitative research methods is the process of naturalistic inquiry that seeks to understand a social phenomenon in the natural setting. With this type of research, the researcher focuses on the why rather than the what and relies on direct experiences of humans making meaning of their every day lives. The purpose of this research is to, "generate knowledge and create understanding about the social world" (Ahmed et al, 2019). This type of research normally includes: interviews, case studies, expert opinions open- ended surveys and not limited to observational research. Furthermore, "Identifying the research problem and forming the research question are some of the initial challenges that researchers encounter in the early stages of a qualitative research project. Researchers and students sometimes fail to understand that adopting a qualitative approach is only the first stage in the process of selecting an appropriate research methodology" (Johansson et al, 2015). Quantitative research methods can be to vague in some cases and confusing. It relies, "on methods of natural sciences, which produces numerical data and hard facts. It aims at establishing cause and effect relationship between two variables by using mathematical, computational and statistical methods" (Ahmed et al, 2019). The researcher collect data that can be put in categories. The purpose of this research is to explain predict or control an idea through a focused collection and analysis of numerical data.
Task
i. Describe qualitative and quantitative research methods.
ii. What is the purpose for each method?
iii. What might be some challenges in using each method?
References:
Ahmad S, Wasim S, Irfan S, et al. Qualitative v/s. quantitative research- a summarized review. J. Evid. Based Med. Healthc. 2019; 6(43), 2828-2832. DOI: 10.18410/jebmh/2019/587
Khankeh, H., Ranjbar, M., Khorasani-Zavareh, D., Zargham-Boroujeni, A., & Johansson, E. (2015). Challenges in conducting qualitative research in health: A conceptual paper. Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research, 20(6), 635-641.