Strengths and Weakness of The Qualitative Research Method

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This essay intends to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research which addresses young people and bullying using two journal articles. The first article (quantitative) aims to “establish the relationship between recurrent peer victimisation and the onset of reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in the early teen years” (Bond et al. 2001, p. 480) while the second article (qualitative) aims to “investigate the nature of teenage girls’ indirect aggression” (Owens et al. 2000, p. 70).The two articles will be critically compared in terms of research design, methods used, approach to data analysis, reported results and the plausibility and appropriateness of the conclusions and recommendations posed. The aim of this essay is thus to evaluate and assess the methods of social science research currently undertaken in published research.

The research design provides a “framework for the collection and analysis of data” (Bryman 2008, p. 31) and thus will dictate how the research evidence is generated. The cohort research design employed within the quantitative analysis of young people and bullying falls within the wider umbrella of longitudinal designs. Within social scientific research the longitudinal approach consists usually of a self completion questionnaire or structured interview within a concurrently cross-sectional design (Bryman 2008, p. 49). These studies are generally concerned with illustrating social change and improving the understanding of causal influence overtime. However, in establishing causality there is considerable ambiguity about the direction of causal influence the cohort design through its potential ability to identify an independent variab...

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...323, pp. 480-484.

Bryman, A., 2008, Social Research Methods, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, New York.

Corner, J., 1991, ‘In search of more complete answers to research questions. Quantitative versus qualitative research methods: is there a way forward?’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 718-727.

Creswell, J., 2003, A framework for design, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, pp. 3-26.

Liamputtong, P. & Ezzy, D., 2005, Qualitative research methods, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, pp. 12-31.

Owens, L., Shute, R. & Slee, P., 2000, ‘“Guess what I just heard”: Indirect Aggression among Teenage Girls in Australia’, Aggressive Behaviour, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 67-83.

Sofaer, S., 2002, ‘Qualitative research methods’ International Journal for Quality in Health Care, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 329-336.

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