Qualitative And Quantitative Research

There are many elements involved in conducting a proper research. The two general types of research designs are qualitative and quantitative. These types of designs are different in many ways. Quantitative is an objective research typically focused on numerical data. Qualitative research is subjective research focused on narrative data. This paper further elaborates on many elements that separate quantitative research from qualitative research.

One element that differentiates the qualitative article from the quantitative article is the size of the group studied. Qualitative research conducts studies using a small number of people that are not randomly selected. In the article ”Perceptions of Older Rural Women Using Computerized Programs for

Qualitative research focuses on subjective data including focus groups, in-depth interviews, and reviews of documents for types of themes. In the article “Perceptions of Older Rural Women Using Computerized Programs for Weight Management” (O’Brien et al., 2014) the researcher conducted interviews using open-ended questions. The unstructured questions allowed the interviewee to express themselves in their own way. In contrast, quantitative research uses objective data. For example, in the article “Do Overweight Adolescents perceive the Need to Reduce Weight and Take Healthy Actions?” (Chen et al., 2009) part of the data collection was calculating the subjects BMI. This is an example of objective data because it is something that can be measured numerically. This article also uses a questionnaire to gain insight on the subject’s opinion, but unlike the interview-styled questions, the subjects could only pick from certain answers. For example, when asked, “How do you perceive your body size?” Underweight, average, overweight, obesity or unknown are the only answers available for them to answer (Chen et al.,

In qualitative research, the researcher is part of the study because they have to interpret the meaning behind the subject’s answers to the open-ended questions. This is how the researcher was able to determine the six themes that emerged in the article “Perceptions of Older Rural Women Using Computerized Programs for Weight” (O’Brien et al., 2014). In contrast, researchers collecting quantitative data usually remain separate from the study. Because quantitative research relies more on statistics and numbers to analyze their data, it is not crucial that they are present during the study. In the article “Do Overweight Adolescents Perceive the Need to Reduce Weight and Take Healthy Actions?” the researcher was able to obtain the information from the questionnaires to for statistical data (Chen et al.,