Reflection

Looking back, I really learned a lot from the course, especially gaining a deeper understanding on how to conduct a qualitative, quantitative and case studies research. Regardless of the subject of our study, there are two types of research to choose from: qualitative and quantitative. However, how much do we know about the area of research and respondents determine which research is suitable for us.

Qualitative research is to define the problem or develop an approach to the problem. By definition, qualitative research is used when we don’t know what to expect and also dig deeper into issues to the problem, which is primarily exploratory research and uncover trends in thought and opinions, and dive deeper into the problem. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop hypotheses for potential quantitative research. Common data collection methods include groups discussion, interviews, uninterrupted observation, and ethnographic participation. Qualitative research collection results vary by using unstructured or semi-structured techniques. 

Quantitative research is conclusive as it tries to quantify a problem and clarify the prevalent issues by looking for projectable results to a larger population. By generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into useable statistics, quantitative research is used to quantify the problem. In research, quantitative method uses measurable data to formulate facts and uncover patterns to do data collection. The purpose of using the method is to generalized the result in order to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables factors. When it comes to structure, quantitative data collection methods are much more structured than qualitative data collection methods. Common data collection includes survey, audits, and click-streams, systematic observations, online polls and website interceptors. 

Both qualitative and quantitative research provides different perspectives on the research. Quantitative research deals with numbers, logic and an objective stance, which is “explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed mathematically based methods with particular statistics. However, qualitative research seeks to answer questions about why and how people behave in the way that they do, which provides in-depth information about human behavior. I personally agree that quantitative research is perhaps easier to define and identify. Basically, the data produced are always numerical and involved with mathematical and statistical methods. It there are no numbers appeared, then it’s definitely not quantitative research. 

At the natural sciences or social sciences field, quantitative research is one of the essential methods if the researchers intend to use the statistical, mathematical or computational techniques to acquire the systematic empirical investigation. The process of measurement provides the crucial connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.

Also, quantitative methods emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through poll and questionnaires. There are a wide range of statistical techniques to analyze quantitative data, including from simple graphs to show the data through tests of correlations between two or more items to statistical the significance. On the other hand, cluster analysis, and hypothesis testing are useful for identifying relationships between groups of subjects that has no clear hypothesis. 

Qualitative research, in short words, does not involve numbers or numerical data during the research. It often has words or language coming with the use of pictures, photographs and observations. Almost any phenomenon can be examined in a qualitative way and it provides an in-depth picture for exploring how and why things have happened for the problem to the research. 

However, there are some disadvantages of using the qualitative research. The most common one is if respondents do not see a value for them in the research, they may provide inaccurate or false information. They may also say what they think the research wishes to know and therefore qualitative researchers need to take the time to build relationships with their research subjects and be aware of the potential problem. The second pita is there may be some difficulties with qualitative research because the researcher may not be put confidential information though ethics are an issue for any type of research. However, some people argue that it is more difficult to analyzing qualitative data. Most qualitative data are drawn from a wide variety of sources, which can be radically different in scope. There are a wide variety of methods to analyzing the data collection. 

What's the difference between the case study and qualitative methods?

Case study is one level above than the methods, not necessary to generalize like quantitative method.

It's the some concept that we understand its value.