Characteristics of Qualitative research

• It is subjective
• Research questions are: what and why
• It is a soft science
• Develops theory
• Interpretative
• Flexible approach –natural settings
• Research questions
• Participants
• Uses communication and observations
• It is explanatory in nature using words not numbers in gathering and analysing data
• It is inductive and constructivist
• Qualitative research uses a small number of cases as a study
• Focuses on in-depth description
• Strive for uniqueness
 Quantitative Research
• Quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things.
• It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other
defined variables – and generalize results from a larger sample
population
• Quantitative research seeks explanatory laws
• It requires a large number of respondents
• Measurements must be objective, quantitative and statistically
valid.
 Characteristics of Quantitative research
• It is objective
• Research questions: How many? Strength of association?
• Hard science
• Test theory
• Measurable
• Reasoning is logistic and deductive
• Hypothesis
• Subject
• Strive for generalization
• Uses instruments
• Reasoning is logistic and deductive
• Report statistical analysis and basic element of analysis is numbers (Anderson,2006)