Qualitative and Quantitative Research Compared
The supplied teaching source gives this distinction one short passage and leaves more unsaid than said. This page sets out its exact wording, marks the silences, and turns what is there into a design decision you can defend.
The two designs as the source states them
The distinction appears inside the research design step, immediately after the source tells you that methods are only as good as the answers they give to research questions. The order matters. In this material the design decision sits downstream of the question, never upstream of it.
Two features of that wording are worth holding on to. The source does not claim that either design is more rigorous than the other, and at this point it does not tie either design to a philosophical position. That connection is made elsewhere in the material, through the layered figure and the epistemological positions — see methodological coherence — but it is not made here.
The second definition is behavioural rather than metaphysical. It describes what the researcher will actually spend their weeks doing: interpreting, or counting. For a project manager scoping a piece of research against a fixed deadline, that is the more useful of the two definitions.
What the source attaches to each design
Set out side by side, the supplied material says a great deal about one column and very little about the other. The table below reproduces only what is in the source; the marked cells are silences, not findings.
THE DISTINCTION AS DRAWN IN THE SUPPLIED SOURCE
| Aspect | Qualitative | Quantitative |
|---|---|---|
| Medium | Words, and possibly images and sounds | Numbers as the main medium |
| Nature of the data | Non-numerical; represents different qualities of a phenomenon | Information on a numerical scale of some sort, based on an agreed measurement process |
| What the researcher does | More explicit judgment or interpretation | More counting and calculating |
| Data shapes named | Attribute or categorical data; ordinal data | Standard scales defined for common entities such as time, distance, height and weight |
| Collection approach described | No collection approach described in this passage | Random sampling and structured data collection instruments that fit diverse experiences into predetermined categories |
| What the results are said to support | Not stated in this passage | Results that can be easily summarised, compared and generalised; testing hypotheses derived from theory; estimating the size of a phenomenon of interest |
| Fallback when full data is unavailable | Not stated | Collect a random sample of data on participant and situational characteristics and use the sample to predict the population |
| Descriptive power claimed | Not stated | Usually a much more sensitive description of a phenomenon than simply being able to categorise the information |
Marked cells indicate that the supplied teaching source is silent, not that the feature is absent from qualitative research.
The asymmetry is itself the finding. The source explains how quantitative data is collected and what quantitative results are good for. For qualitative work it describes the data, names two of its common shapes, and then hands analysis off.
Why the choice follows the question
The source is blunt about sequencing: the methods you choose depend on the questions you want to answer, and methods are only as good as the answers they give to those questions. The design is therefore a consequence, not a preference. If you find yourself defending a design without being able to point at the question that produced it, the design is not yet justified.
This is the same fit test the material applies at every level — every step should be appropriate to the nature, the aim, the population and the context of the study. Before you can apply it you need a question written in one sentence, which is the discipline set out in Step 4: deciding your research question.
Reading a research question for its design
The three worked examples the source prints
The teaching material carries three question-to-method examples. They exist to demonstrate the move from a question to a way of answering it, and they are reproduced here in the source's own terms.
QUESTION-TO-METHOD EXAMPLES GIVEN IN THE SUPPLIED SOURCE
| Research question | Method described | Type as labelled |
|---|---|---|
| What impact does changing work health and safety laws and policies have on engagement of volunteers? | Classical secondary legal research, narrowly defined: discovering any statements of policy and other policy documents. Collect data to determine numbers and type of volunteering before and after. Compare and interpret how the laws have changed, how they have been interpreted and adopted. | Not labelled in the source |
| How has on-line learning impacted on numbers of students enrolling in post-graduate courses? | Collect data on the various on-line courses and assess the impact on numbers enrolling before and after the introduction of the strategy. Research and compare with other types of enrolment strategies. | Quantitative |
| How do managers and workers apply the ethical standards of service organisations? | Interviews or questionnaires, with follow up of responses to specific applications. | Qualitative |
The unlabelled first example repays attention. Its method statement contains a documentary strand — statements of policy, policy documents, how the laws have been interpreted and adopted — and a counting strand, being the numbers and type of volunteering before and after. The source does not say which label applies, which is consistent with its own advice that practical research usually needs more than one type of method.
The third example is the useful corrective to a common assumption. A questionnaire appears there under a qualitative label, so the instrument does not settle the design. What you ask for, and what you then do with the answers, settles it.
Using several methods, and what the source withholds
The half-and-half time split is the source's own rule of thumb. It is offered without evidence, and it is not a standard — but it is a usefully sobering planning assumption for anyone who has scheduled a research project as though writing were a final week's work.
The exemplar volume of master's project management research shows the pattern in use rather than in theory. One chapter compares interview transcripts to survey results and triangulates them through the literature review; another pairs a document review with a survey questionnaire. Those are published design descriptions, not instructions — the full set is collected in seventeen worked research designs.
What the choice decides downstream
The design label is not a line in a methodology chapter. It commits you to a data shape, a sourcing strategy, a class of claim and a schedule profile, and each of those is expensive to change once collection has begun.
Four things the design decision locks in
What your fields will hold
A quantitative design commits you to measurement against an agreed scale. A qualitative design commits you to word data, and to the categorical and ordered forms the source files under that heading. Work this through in attribute, ordinal and numerical data.
Where the evidence comes from
The design interacts with whether you gather evidence yourself or use evidence gathered by others. The source's volunteering example leans on existing policy documents; its ethical standards example generates its own material through interviews.
What you may assert at the end
The source attaches easy summarising, comparison and generalisation to quantitative results, and hypothesis testing derived from theory. It makes no equivalent claim for qualitative results anywhere in the supplied material.
How your time divides
Whichever design you take, the source's planning advice is the same: half the available time for doing the research, half for writing and rewriting it. Build that into the baseline before you commit to a collection window.
Common mistakes
Checking the choice before you build the instrument
The cost of an unfit design is not discovered at analysis; it is discovered at write-up, when the data cannot answer the question. Run this check while the instrument is still a draft.
Design check
- Your research question exists in one sentence, and you can point to the words in it that determine the design.
- You can state, in a single sentence, whether the answer to the question is a count, a measurement or an account.
- The instrument you are drafting actually produces that. A five-point scale does not produce an account; an open interview does not produce a comparable measurement.
- If you have two strands, you have written down which one carries the main claim and what happens if they disagree.
- Every analysis technique you intend to use has a source you can cite, whether or not that source is the teaching material.
- Your schedule allows as much time for writing and rewriting as for doing the research.
What to carry forward
- The supplied source recognises two major research designs and derives the choice from the research problem and the research questions, not from researcher preference.
- Its distinction is medium plus activity: words and interpretation on one side, numbers and calculation on the other.
- The account of quantitative work is far fuller than the account of qualitative work; the gap is in the source, not in the field.
- Generalisation, hypothesis testing and estimating the size of a phenomenon are attached to quantitative results only.
- Several types of method are expected in practical research, but no combination procedure is supplied — that part you justify yourself.
- The instrument does not determine the design. The source labels a questionnaire-based example qualitative.
Frequently asked questions
Does the supplied source say one design is better than the other?
No. It presents them as two major research designs and states that researchers choose according to the nature of the research problem and the questions they aim to answer. No claim of superior rigour is made either way. The asymmetry in how much detail each receives is a feature of the teaching material, not a judgment about quality.
Can I use both qualitative and quantitative methods in one project?
The source positively expects it, stating that in any relevant or practical research it is usually essential to use several types of research methods. What it does not supply is any procedure for combining them, weighting them, or resolving a disagreement between strands. Adopt a procedure from a cited text and justify it as your own choice.
Is a survey or questionnaire automatically quantitative?
Not according to this source. One of its three worked examples answers a question about how managers and workers apply ethical standards through interviews or questionnaires, and labels that example qualitative. What determines the design is the kind of answer you are seeking and what you do with it, not the instrument.
Where does the source explain how to analyse qualitative data?
It does not. It states that a range of techniques for analysing this sort of data are discussed in detail in the textbook, and that textbook is not part of the supplied material. Any qualitative analysis technique you use has to be sourced and cited from elsewhere.
How much of my schedule should go to writing?
The source advises planning half your time for doing the research and half for writing and rewriting. That is its own rule of thumb, offered without supporting evidence, so treat it as a planning heuristic rather than a standard. It is a more realistic starting split than most first-time research schedules assume.
References and source attribution
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Listed as background reading in the supplied teaching source; the 2012 4th ed. is also cited there.)
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge.
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. (design descriptions paraphrased from published abstracts).
- The supplied teaching source: teaching notes and slide decks on developing a research topic, section 5, 'Design your research'. Institution, unit code and authors withheld.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Take my research question and tell me which words in it point to a qualitative or a quantitative design.
- Show me the exact wording the supplied source uses to define qualitative and quantitative research.
- What does the supplied source not say about combining qualitative and quantitative strands?
- Compare the three worked question-to-method examples in the source and tell me what reasoning pattern they share.
- Draft a two-paragraph design justification for a question about stakeholder communication using only source-supported terms.
- Which claims am I entitled to make at the end of a qualitative design according to this source?