Madero Martínez Silvia Victoria

a220201658
Summary 1
Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research

- Quantitative research: Data collection procedures that result in numerical data, which is
analyzed by statistical methods. Ex: Survey research using a questionnaire.
- Qualitative research: Involves data collection procedures resulted in open-ended, non-
numerical data, then is analyzed by non-statistical methods. Ex: Interview research, with
transcribed recordings analyzed by qualitative content analysis.
There combination led to a third research approach:

- Mixed methods research: Combination of qualitative and quantitative research when

collecting the information or at the analysis levels. Ex: Consecutive and interrelated
questionnaire and interview studies.
Miles and Huberman (1994) assert that all information is qualitative because they refer to
“essences of people, objects, and situations, some can be just that words and other times
numbers.
Three basis sources of divisions between these two approaches: Ideological contrast, contrast in
categorization, and a contrast in the perception of individuals diversity.
1. Ideological differences: It mentions how we should not be surprised that these two terms
are often used to represent contrasting views about the world around us.
2. Contrasting categorizing/coding practices: Researchers typically uses ‘categories’ or
‘codes’ to structure and shape information, and between Qualitative and Quantitative this
categories and categorization process are very different. Quantitative research starts the
research project with coding tables for processing the information. Qualitative
researchers use coding, and these categories are different in two ways, they are not
numerical but verbal, another aspect is they are left open and flexible as long as possible
during the process of investigation.
3. Different approaches to individual diversity: Both are related to people, what they do,
what they are like, their thoughts and beliefs, their plans, etc. Because people differ from
each other in the way they perceive, interpret, and remember things, their accounts will
show considerable variation across individuals. Quantitative researchers follow a
‘meaning in the general’ strategy, whereas qualitative researchers concentrate on an in-
depth understanding of the ‘meaning in the particular’.

The Qual-Quan contrast and the ‘paradigm war’ – Contrasting patterns of the two
research paradigms in:
- Categorizing the world: Quan: numerical category system; Qual: emergent flexible verbal
coding.
 Madero Martínez Silvia Victoria
a220201658
Summary 1
- Perceiving individual diversity: Quan: using large samples to iron out any individual
idiosyncrasies; Qual: focus on the unique meaning carried by individual organisms.
- Analysing data: Quan: relying on the formalized system of statistics; Qual: relying on the
researcher’s individual sensitivity.
Quantitative research – pragmatic, was called the ‘scientific method’, three key stages in the
research process: observing a phenomenon or identifying a problem, generating a hypothesis,
testing the hypothesis by collecting and analyzing empirical information using standardized
procedures. In applied linguistics, Lazaraton (2005) the period between 1970-1985 several
research methods texts in the 1980s, Duff (2002) also highlights the growing sophistication of
quantitative studies in the 1990s.
Characteristics: Using numbers, a priori categorization – to be done prior to the actual study,

- Variables rather than cases, quantitative researchers are less interested in individuals than
in the common features of groups of people.
- Statistics and the language of statistics, standardized procedures to assess objective
reality, quest for generalizability and universal laws.
- Is systematic, rigorous, focused and controlled, involves precise measurement and
producing reliable and replicable data that is generalizable to other contexts.
Qualitative research:

- Thriving discipline, and while it is true that some issues have been subject to discussion,
there exists a core set of features that would universally characterize a properly
conducted qualitative study.
- Emergent research design, qualitative research works with a wide range of data including
recorded interviews, various types of texts (journal, field notes, journal and diary entries,
and images or videos.

Weaknesses: Small participant samples that most studies investigate. Lack of

methodological rigour.

Mixed methods research:

Both qualitative and quantitative inform each other. Realists, idealists, and critical
theorists can do better by incorporating other ideas than by remaining pure.
Theory in ways that only each can.