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Do You Believe That the Choice of Research Method Is Simply Based Upon the Type of Information You Wish to Collect, or Do Different Methods Ultimately Reflect Incompatible Ways of View Social Reality?

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Submitted By motherwell
Words 2007
Pages 9
Discuss the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Introduction

Researchers in social sciences conduct research to gain knowledge of society and its inhabitants and how they interact with each other. A researcher may see an area where a factory has closed with mass redundancies, or they wish to enquire why ethnic minorities are stopped and searched more often by the police. The researcher is seeking to broaden our knowledge or fill in gaps in our knowledge and explain the phenomena (Bryman, 2008). To conduct the research a question must be framed that needs answering, and a methodology for the research chosen. There are two methodologies that are used in social science research, quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The quantitative methodology is influenced by the positivist tradition, which seeks a single truth that can be discovered by scientific investigation (Gilbert, 2005). The second methodology is qualitative, which is influenced by the interpretivist position. This position holds that truth is not so easy to find and reality is subjective and cannot be found through scientific methods (Benton & Craib,2001). This essay will look at both methodologies and try to discover if the research method is influenced by the type of information one wishes to collect, or if a methodology has no bearing on social reality. It will also examine a research question chosen by the author and their preferred research methodology.

Quantitive Research

Quantitative research follow the positivist tradition of research, there is an ‘objective, external world that exists independently of human perception, which is amenable to quantitative measurement’ (Gilbert, 2005,p32). For the positivist their is a single truth that can be discovered by scientific investigation. To this end positivism uses the quantitative method to collect numerical data,

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