Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative Methods And analysis * . Quantitative research is used widely in social sciences such as sociology, anthropology,

and political science. Research in mathematical sciences such as physics is also 'quantitative'

by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term

relates to empirical methods, originating in both philosophical positivism and the history of

statistics, which contrast qualitative research methods. Qualitative methods produce

information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only

hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify, which of such hypotheses are true.

Quantitative methods are research techniques that are used to gather quantitative data – information dealing with numbers and anything that is measurable. Statistics, tables and

graphs, are often used to present the results of these methods. They are therefore to be

distinguished from qualitative methods. In most physical and biological sciences, the use of

either quantitative or qualitative methods is uncontroversial, and each is used when

appropriate. In the social sciences, particularly in sociology, social anthropology and

psychology, the use of one or other type of method has become a matter of controversy and

even ideology, with particular schools of thought within each discipline favouring one type

of method and pouring scorn on to the other. Advocates of quantitative methods argue that

only by using such methods can the social sciences become truly scientific; advocates of

qualitative methods argue that quantitative methods tend to obscure the reality of the social

phenomena under study because they underestimate or neglect the non-measurable factors,

which may be the most important. The modern tendency (and in reality the majority

tendency throughout the history of social science) is to use eclectic approaches. Quantitative

methods might be used with a global qualitative frame. Qualitative methods might be used to

understand the meaning of the numbers produced by quantitative methods. Using

quantitative methods, it is possible to give precise and testable expression to qualitative

ideas. This combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering is often referred to as

mixed-methods research.
5. Examples of quantitative research are:- Research that consists of the percentage

amounts of all the elements that make up Earth's atmosphere. Survey that concludes that

the average patient has to wait two hours in the waiting room of a certain doctor before being

selected. An experiment in which group x was given two tablets of Aspirin a day and

Group y was given two tablets of a placebo a day where each participant is randomly

assigned to one or other of the groups. Multimethodology,or mixed methods research, is an

approach to professional research that combines the collection and analysis of quantitative

and qualitative data. The approach to mixed methods research occurs when the researcher

cannot rely on either a quantitative or a qualitative method alone and must buttress his or her

findings with a method drawn from the other research strategy. Its most typical form is when

ethnographers employ structured interviewing or possibly a self-completion questionnaire,

because not everything they need to know about is accessible through participant

observation. This kind of need can arise for several reasons, such as the need for information

that is not accessible to observation or to qualitative interviewing for example, systematic

information about social backgrounds of people in a particular setting, or the difficulty of

gaining access to certain groups of people. For example, Hochschild (1989) used qualitative

analysis of time use in her study of working couples with children to assess levels of

participation in everyday domestic work. This formed the basis for her qualitative

exploration based on interviews and observation of the gender strategies that workers use.