måndag 5 oktober 2015
Post Theme 4: Quantitative Research
This week we’ve been discussing methods for research studies, with focus on quantitative research. This quickly lead to discusson on qualitative methods as well, in order to make comparisions.
The conclusion I’ve reached so far is that it’s easier to compare data when it’s quantitative. You can for example take mean values and present it in different ways through diagrams and graphs. This is convenient and fairly easy to understand without too much effort.
The big limitation is that you can’t get so much information within quantitative studies, depending on the area you’re researching. But in general, quantitative data can’t explain the results when there is a complex question. You can’t explain for example people or feelings through quantitative data.
I think the importance of quantitative research is to make a good design when creating the forms of the research. You need to design it properly and put a lot of effort into this. Otherwise you won’t know what data you actually collected, if there is uncertainity in how the questions were interpreted.
My work this week consisted of reading articles and answering seminar questions. I also attended a lecture and a seminar.
I did not find this week’s theme as interesting as the previous ones. Maybe that has to do with the feeling that it’s quite straight forward - it hasn’t been as much to discuss this week as previous weeks. Another reason for this might be that we’ve actually used these methods in our bachelor thesis work last semester, so the area wasn’t as new to us and didn’t raise as much questions.
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Hi Rebecka,
SvaraRaderaI agree that this week's theme was very straight forward and hence not as interesting as the first two themes. I enjoyed reading your post as it is very structured and easy to follow. I think even a person who hasn't participated in the lecture or seminar group would understand the main points of this week. Good job.
Hi~
SvaraRaderaI can know you devote a lot of time to this week from your clear list of benefit , limitation and importance of quantitative research. I also have the feeling that the topic of this week is a little boring, because we have to gain knowledge related to quantitative research rather than discussing. Good job!
Hello! Your conclusions seem to be the same as mine, and I agree that there were not as many ground breaking news this week compared to the previous themes. I did find it interesting discussing what people's opinions about the methods were, as quantitative research seem to be preferred by scientists and engineers, while qualitative methods are for social studies. After having done this week's theme, would you say that your opinions of the methods have changed? Would you have done your bachelor thesis any different?
SvaraRaderaI agree with you on nearly everything you have said. You explained the difference between quantitative and qualitative methods really well and you also gave examples for their uses in your pre-post about this theme. The only thing I like to add to your thoughts is that quantitative methods are not only easier to evaluate but also easier to verify. It is nearly impossible to reproduce exactly similar results you gathered in a quantitative study. Moreover I guess it is also possible to get some difficulties evaluating quantitative method results since sometimes you can get a huge amount of data and it is not obvious how to quantify them best.
SvaraRaderaHi!
SvaraRaderaTotally agree on this week being pretty straight forward which made the seminar discussion mostly agreeing on everything since this subject does have a right and wrong answer. It's good that you point out that quantitative methods are easier to understand "without too much effort". I agree on this point, do you believe that will reflect on future working situations where we would use quantitative instead of qualitative methods to make it more easy and reliable?
Yes, you are right on that when conducting a quantitative research you need to put a lot of thought into your questions in order to make them as objective as possible and not misunderstood. I think a good way to avoid this would be testing your e.g. questionnaire before sending it to the real participants.
Keep it up!!
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI totally agree on your opinion about the data collection for creating the forms of the research. Generally,it migbe be necessary to have the quantitative analysis before we start the further step detailing framework .In some way,the accurate data could lead us to the shortcut for the results we expect all the time,especially,when we have many accesses to be chosen.On the other hand,the data would be nothing without the guidance of quanlitative method in some cases.I think that's why you say that quantitative data can’t explain the results when there is a complex question.
Hi!
SvaraRaderaEven though I understand your point and agree with it, I don’t necessarily believe that it’s always impossible to explain people or feelings through quantitative data. For instance, one could find out there to be certain behavioural patterns from people with certain qualities. Now, in order for one to understand if this is true or not - one could perform a quantitative method that would yield statistical results which would say whether or not the initial hypothesis was true. However, if one wanted to understand why this behaviour exists, quantitative methods would simply not suffice. Thanks for a great read with concise thoughts on the theme, keep up the good work!
Nice reflection! I would've like you to expand upon what you mean with quantitative data not being able to answer "more complex" questions. Like what type of questions could this be? Why is it that quantitative data can't answer these?
SvaraRaderaMy take on this would be that qualitative methods can be used when, for example, one needs to investigate why a group of people feel a certain way about something. For this a quantitative approach would not answer any questions.
Keep it up!
Hi!
SvaraRaderaAs usual I like your neatly organized reflections. Your thoughts are easy to follow and I have to admit again that I agree with you a lot. The theme topic this week is not that hard to follow but quite straight forward as you said. Your summary of quantitative research is great as well as your discussion on qualitative analysis. What I want to add is that it could also be good to discuss some on the mixed research method. I am quite looking forward to your opinion on that topic. Thanks for sharing your writing. Well done!
Hello!
SvaraRaderaGreat blog post! You seem to have drawn almost the same conclusions as me regarding what characterizes qualitative and quantitative research. But I also believe that a lot also has to do with what kind of answer one is after. In some situations it might be relevant to present opinions or feelings with quantitative data, because of the answer one is after (although that it unusual.
I agree with pretty much everything you are saying in this reflection, even though I would like to rephrase your statement about quantitative methods being unable to explain complex questions.
SvaraRaderaIt can defenitely be hard, but I think it's more about defining and redefining your research question(s) to understand what you want to achieve (yea I know it's cheating to write comments after the Haibo Li lecture), and make sure your hypotheses are well stated.
I would argue you could find really unexpected connections that would be really hard to see with qualitative methods, as long as you designed your tests properly, like you also mention.
On the other hand, even though I just spent my whole arguing the possibility, it might not always be the easiest way to use qualitative methods.