Quantitative and qualitative methods

Each scientific discipline has its own research methods. Their task is to diagnose and solve scientific problems. Social researchers have a variety of methods at their disposal (which you will learn more about in the following modules). The most common way to organize them is to divide them into quantitative and qualitative methods. Of course, this division isn’t strict. Moreover, a third approach might be applied in social sciences: mixed method (the combined use of quantitative and qualitative research methods). As Creswell (2020: 29) emphasizes, these approaches, contrary to appearances, aren’t mutually exclusive:

qualitative and quantitative approaches should not be viewed as polar opposites or dichotomies; instead, they represent different ends on a continuum (…). A study tends to be more qualitative than quantitative or vice versa. Mixed methods research resides in the middle of this continuum because it incorporates elements of both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

The most noticeable difference between quantitative and qualitative research is the type of raw data that a researcher will collect. In quantitative research, the data takes the form of numbers (for example: the number of people supporting Poland's accession to the Eurozone and the number of opponents), while in the qualitative study the data usually takes the form of text (the narrative, discourse of people underlying the reasons for accessing/opposing the Eurozone, or an interview record, the content of a diary). Quantitative researchers, therefore, try to find an answer to the question ‘how much?’, while qualitative researchers to questions: ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. Hence, the difference in the methods of data analysis: sets of numbers can be analyzed using statistical methods, sets of texts require a different approach. Note that both types of methods differ in terms of the nature of the research sample: it is usually small for qualitative methods and large for quantitative methods.

In quantitative research, the purpose of measurement is to determine the frequency of certain attitudes or views. Tools such as questionnaires are then used as they are ideally suited for statistical analysis. Other forms of popular research techniques are standardized interviews or questionnaires. In turn, the aim of qualitative research is to describe, interpret and explain social phenomena from an “internal” perspective, which is carried out, among others, by in-depth individual interviews, focus groups, or observation and participant observation.

Note that qualitative and quantitative approaches may treat the research process differently (see module: What is positivist and non-positivist (interpretivist) inquiry?). The goal of the qualitative approach – unlike the quantitative approach – lies not in the explanation and detection of the cause-and-effect relationship, but in the understanding of the studied phenomenon, which may be achieved by recreating the internal perspective of the research participants. In other words, qualitative research is an approach to discover and understand the importance that people or groups attribute to a social problem, while quantitative research means testing objective theories by analyzing the relationship between different variables (see module: What are variables and how do we measure them?).