{"id":184,"date":"2019-01-31T08:10:50","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T08:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/?p=184"},"modified":"2019-01-17T09:13:55","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T09:13:55","slug":"research-methods-qualitative-vs-quantitative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/2019\/01\/31\/research-methods-qualitative-vs-quantitative\/","title":{"rendered":"Research methods: Qualitative vs Quantitative"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point in research the question “Which research method are you using?” comes up. For some disciplines (law as an example), the methods are almost pre-set, while other disciplines (such as the social sciences) have a much wider choice.<\/p>\n

Research methods come down to two basic types: qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative (indicating that the data collected is in numerical form) and qualitative (indicating that the data collected is not in numerical form).<\/p>\n

Often discipline determines which one:<\/p>\n

Quantitative – the sciences, as most experimental data results in numerical data.<\/p>\n

Qualitative – the humanities and social sciences (including law), as most data worked with is textual or informational, and not quantitative.<\/p>\n

A useful summary of the differences between the two is here:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Over time, the social sciences and humanities have started to include quantitative methods as well, introducing a new category called\u00a0mixed methods<\/em>. This refers to a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods being used in the research.<\/p>\n

Because of this, it often seems that research methodology books lean heavily towards the social sciences, as most authors that have written about research methods come from the social sciences.<\/p>\n

However, these books speak to the concept of research methods and can be used across disciplines.<\/p>\n

A great source for exploring research methodology is the database Sage Research Methods Online .\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0This database has a great methods map, letting you delve deeper or wider into different methodologies and data collection techniques.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is a great database loaded with information for those feeling slightly confused about research methods, or just needing some up to date sources to help.<\/p>\n

There are also many helpful books in the library on research methodology – a useful shelf number is 300.72. In general though, if you are browsing in your subject area – look for books that are at the beginning of the shelves, and ending in .072 in number, and those will be related to research methodologies in your discipline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At some point in research the question “Which research method are you using?” comes up. For some disciplines (law as an example), the methods are almost pre-set, while other disciplines (such as the social sciences) have a much wider choice. Research methods come down to two basic types: qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative (indicating that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tu3H-2Y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}