DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Data Collection and Analysis

Data Collection and Analysis

Research methods

Quantitative research is one in which data are collected and analyzed quantitative variables. Qualitative research prevents quantification. Qualitative researchers make narrative records of the phenomena being studied using techniques such as participant observation and unstructured interviews. The fundamental difference between both methods is that quantitative studies the association or relationship between quantified and qualitative variables do structural and situational contexts. Qualitative research seeks to identify the underlying nature of reality, its system of relationships, dynamic structure. Quantitative research seeks to determine the strength of association or correlation between variables, generalization and objectivity of the results through a sample to make inferences to a population sample from which all proceeds. After studying the association or correlation is intended, in turn, make causal inferences to explain why things happen or not a certain way.

Qualitative and quantitative distinctions are grounded in two contrasting approaches to categorizing and explaining data. Different paradigms produce and use different types of data. Early studies distinguished the two methods according to the kind of data collected, whether textual or numerical. The classic qualitative approach includes study of real-life settings, focus on participants' context, inductive generation of theory, open-ended data collection, analytical strategies based on textual data, and use of narrative forms of analysis and presentation. Basically, the qualitative method refers to a research paradigm that addresses interpretation and socially constructed realities. The classic quantitative approach encompasses hypothesis formulation based on precedence, experiment, control groups and variables, comparative analysis, sampling, standardization of data collection, statistics, and the concept of causality. Quantitative design refers to a research paradigm that hypothesizes relationships between variables in an objective way.

Pros & cons of the qualitative and quantitative research methods

In general, quantitative methods are very powerful in terms of external validity as a representative sample of the population means that population inference from a sample with a defined security and accuracy. Therefore a limitation of qualitative methods is their difficulty to generalize. Quantitative research to test hypotheses not only eliminates the role of chance to discard or reject a hypothesis, but to quantify the clinical relevance of a phenomenon by measuring the relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction and number needed to patients to treat to avoid one event .

The use of both quantitative and qualitative procedures in an investigation would probably help correct the biases of each method, but the fact that quantitative methodology is the most used is not by chance but with the development of scientific method over the years. We believe in this sense that quantification increases and facilitates the compression of the universe around us and long before the logical positivists or neopositivists Galileo Galilei said in this sense "measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not.

Mixed research method

The technique in which the qualitative and quantitative techniques are used collectively for data collection purpose is called mixed research. Mixed research method is the third most important kind of ...