Types of Methodology

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how one of the most important choices that a researcher makes in designing a research project is to make a choice between qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It shows how, although the two can certainly be used together, most research projects rely far more heavily on one than on the other, either because of the nature of the data itself or because of personal preferences of the researcher.

From the Paper:

"In general quantitative research is most valuable when it is used to investigate any behavior (or value or belief) that can be quantified without doing harm to the core concept that is being investigated. Some concepts and behaviors are in fact very difficult to quantify, as Patton (1990) argues. How, for example, can one quantity the idea of religious belief without coming up with a unit that is so far divorced from the idea of faith that the research design has destroyed its own subject? One of the problems that often comes up within research design is that some elements of a problem may be best assessed through quantitative means and others through qualitative means."

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