Social Research: Quantitative And Qualitative Research Methods

1424 Words3 Pages

Social research is the practical activity concentrates for addressing the research problems by way of providing research strategy, a research design and tool of data gathering and analysis. Any research strategy has various implication for research design and implementation of various tools of data gathering and analysis. There are basically social research based on the three major factors: strategy, design and method, and these are based on the quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative method is based on the numerical facts and figure of the set of observations (Zhao and Zhao, 2012). While, qualitative research method register and assess talks and actions or review text which someone has written. This difference between quantitative …show more content…

Under this essay report, qualitative and quantitative research strategies are going to implement determining characteristics of social research. Qualitative research strategies are those which able to draw the real meaning and informed by the interpretivist tradition under the social theory. Under this theory, the description and the explanation of the social planet is required to refer to subjective message (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015). Interpretivist research focus to expose the fruitful aspects of cultural as under the case of social anthropology. Such tradition has implemented ethnographic tools to expose the significance of other cultures, covering sub-cultures under urban and rural areas. Ethography covers observing societies, interviewing individuals, reading the text found under documents, and gathering this data instantly under the natural context divided by those studied. This implementation of the natural context is must if the researcher is to find out the social world because, this has been seen by those being studied. The main focus of ethnographic tool is learning to …show more content…

After all, social researchers can only claim a degree of validity for their research findings since research is scrutinised by other researchers in the professional community. Failure to comply with these established standards can mean the research will not be published and the credibility and reputation of the social researcher is seriously undermined. However, there are many disciplinary and sub-disciplinary groups with their own methodological preferences. Sociologists vary considerably in the stance they take on theoretical and methodological issues, but there have been distinct theoretical and philosophical trends that have influenced research strategies and research designs of sociologists. There is a tendency in British academic sociology to emphasise the theoretical and philosophical inputs to the research process rather than the potential outcomes. Professional social researchers, on the other hand, must produce findings that can be ‘warranted’ as knowledge by their rather different research community. Both academic and professional social researchers may be required to be more outcome- and audience- oriented if they are seeking external funding for research. Social scientists may choose research strategies that reflect long-held and much cherished tenets about the philosophy of social science, but methodological decisions are affected by the specific social context.

Open Document