Blog 8: Quantitative vs Qualitative

I’m excited to write this blog, because it might be one of the concepts that I understood the most in our class. The way my mind processes things, it was easy for me to discern a difference between the two different styles of research.

The easiest way for me to break down the difference between the words was to think about quantity and quality. The Quantity aspect makes me think about numbers and surveys. Taking data and crunching the figures to make sense of it all. The Quality word takes me a different direction. I think of details and nuance. I think of sitting down at an interview with someone and hanging up on every word or phrase that they say.

The two terms have a number of similarities and differences. The similarities are harder to find in my opinion. A lot of it revolves around the prepping and planning of both a qualitative and quantitative study. Both require an almost tactical approach to the collection of your data. Whether you are writing a detailed and well thought out survey, or designing a simulation in which you will observe your participants, both require an elevated amount of organization to ensure success.

Another similarity falls in the post-research category. Both of them require a fair amount of time to sit down and analyze your findings. Whether it’s looking at numbers and entering them in formula based spreadsheet, or coding answers from an interview. Both forms of research require a precise period of reflection and processing.

The final similarity is a big picture idea. It’s the idea that both aspects are designed to research how humans communicate with one another and the world around us. Whether is through computer mediated communication or face to face interactions with coworkers in the office, both forms of communication research are looking at finding out ways for explaining or improving the way we interact.

The differences between the two terms is much easier to understand. Quantitative research is about the processing and understanding of hard data that we have acquired through surveys or other forms of mass data collection. Qualitative is about a more detailed look at a specific human being and their experiences.

Qualitative research gives us the ability to transform our research question as our studies provide new information and outlooks, whereas a quantitative approach seems a bit more black and white to me. We are looking for specific answers in the data to lead us to our hypothesis.

To me, a qualitative viewpoint is a detailed look into a microscope, whereas a quantitative plan gives us more of a satellite image of our phenomenon.

Both forms are important and have a special place in communication research, and I know that certain questions are best answered with one format or another.

In my proposed research, I am going to study how people process breaking news in a crisis situation. I think it will be best to take a qualitative approach, and look into the specifics of my participants though process and mindset.