What is qualitative and quantitative research? How does qualitative research differ from quantitative research?

        Qualitative and quantitative are two different types of research methods. Qualitative research is done to figure out the explanations to why something occurred and to get a deep understanding of the underlying opinions and motivations behind a specific action. This type of research is done when the goal is to fully explore any topic. Usually interviews, observation and focus groups are some of the commonly used methods to get qualitative data. The sample size is often small. Normally such things cannot be measured in terms of numbers hence, qualitative research method is used. Quantitative research means getting numerical data.

        Measurable data is used to get facts and figures. The sample size that is selected is usually large in this case. The methods that can be used to get this sort of data include online or mobile surveys, systematic observations and polls. Some of the major differences between the two methods can be discussed. Firstly, qualitative data is uncountable whereas quantitative data is countable. Secondly, Qualitative data can aid us in getting well explained answers for let’s say about feelings and emotions of people whereas, quantitative data can be used to derive a trend along with numerical facts (Dovetailapp.com 2018).

        Thirdly, qualitative data helps us to understand why something happened in a detailed manner however, in the case of quantitative data only the results can be seen. Some basic examples that can help us to understand the concept of qualitative and quantitative data can be that if you are measuring the number of people who visited a café in a week that is quantitative research but if you want to know the reasons that persuaded customers to visit that café then it will become a qualitative research.

References of qualitative and quantitative research

Dovetailapp.com. 2018. The difference between qualitative and quantitative research. April 11. https://dovetailapp.com/guides/qual-quant.