Qualitative research
Unlike quantitative research which relies on numbers and
data, qualitative research is more focused on how people feel, what they think
and why they make certain choices.
e.g. if you are
thinking of changing your branding you would carry out qualitative research to
see what emotional reactions people have to the new identity and what they associate
it with.
e.g.when a
researcher reads historical documents, histories and diaries to draw
conclusions about an era, he is also performing qualitative research.
e.g. In the
project Children and their
Changing Media Environment,
a qualitative study preceded a quantitative one, which proved to be very
helpful when interpreting the quantitative data; the same happened with the UK
Children Go Online research project. As the authors of the study noticed,
"Though often insightful in suggesting themes or trends, qualitative
research is best complemented by quantitative research in order to judge the
scale and significance of the findings
Quantitative research
Quantitative
research is a more logical and data-led approach which provides a measure of
what people think from a statistical and numerical point of view.
For example, if you wanted to know how many of
your customers support a proposed change in your products or service and how
strongly (on a scale) they support it. Quantitative research can gather a
large amount of data that can be easily organised and manipulated into reports
for analysis. -
e.g. In 2005 a
special Eurobarometer Survey on issues related to "Safer Internet"
was conducted in 29 countries (25 EU member states, two candidate states -
Bulgaria, Romania, and two accession countries - Croatia, Turkey). Respondents
were adults who had a child under 18 living in their household for whom they
were responsible (- for this reason, respondents were not necessarily the
child's parents but could be older siblings or other carers). They were asked
several questions regarding child internet uses. Although this didn't provide
access to the children's actual behaviour but to others' perception of their
behavior.
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