Question

How do qualitative and quantitative methods differ from one another, and when would you use each one??

Answer 1

When it comes to collecting and describing an information through a research method, generally there are two methods - qualitative and quantitative method

Qualitative Method: -

emphasizes on describing an event in a profound and inclusive means.   It is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It gives understandings into the problem to bring concepts or theories for possible quantitative research. Qualitative method is also used to discover drifts in opinions and thoughts and plunge deeper into the problem. unstructured or semi-structured techniques are used to collective data for this method. Individual interviews, group discussions, participation/ observations are some common methods used in this method. The size of the collected data is generally small.

Quantitative method

Quantitative method is used to evaluate the problem by inducing numerical data or data that can be changed into functional statistics. It is used to measure views, conduct, attitudes and further defined variables – and specify results from a bigger collected data. It uses quantifiable data to frame facts and discover designs in investigation. This method is much more organized as compared to Qualitative method of data collection. Quantitative data collection methods can be used to collect data using various forms of surveys, Observations, secondary data etc.