Research and its Types with Reference to Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Classification: Qualitative and Quantitative Research

This is to extend the work about the types of the research with regards to the qualitative and quantitative research. However, the previous blogs presented classification with regards to the purpose, data collection, methods and data analysis.

1. Qualitative and Quantitative Research

According to Reichardt and Cook (as cited in Nunan, 1992, p. 3-4), in traditional research, there are two major types of research called as qualitative and quantitative research, binary distinction. He discussed that quantitative type of research contains the features like; objective, controlled measurement, quantifiably of data, outcome oriented, observed as outsider and results are generalizable. While on the other hand side, qualitative research bears the qualities as; subjective, uncontrolled observations, observed as insider, assumes the dynamic reality and results are ungeneralizable.

Dornyei (2007), descried that the research which are mainly quantitative, researcher collects the large number on numerical data and analyze through statistical methods for getting desired results. However, the research, which performs qualitative research, starts from collecting non-numerical, open-ended data. Non-statistical method of analysis is important in that kind of research (p. 24).

The Richards (2005) created an opposing argument, which was about the distinction of the research on the bases of numerical and non-numerical because of lacking clear guidelines. According to him, similarly to the quantitative research, qualitative also have to collect some sort of numerical data having the information like; age of the participants and in contrast to it, sometimes quantitative research collects the non-numerical data containing the information like; nationality and gender of the participants. Arguing in the same domain, Miles and Huberman (1994) proposed that every kind of data could be consider as qualitative because it concerns with the ideas, objectives and situations. To defend their point of they given the statement that sometimes researcher expresses his or her socio-cultural experiences in words as in qualitative or sometimes in numerical or quantifiable form as in quantitative research (as cited in Dornyei, 2007, p. 25). After that Dornyei (2007) produced a rebuttal by giving much clear distinctions as he said that quantitative research systematically declares the variables, plan the whole design to which he given the name of coding tables, collects the numerical data and then after analyzing it generates results. Quantitative research, on the other side, collects short amount of verbal data and keeps the research open and flexible through the entire process of analysis (p. 26). Therefore, with the help of all that argumentative progress we can state that quantitative research is having the characteristics as; systematic, numerical, statistical analysis to lead the results and generalization without getting the part of procedure (outsider). Although, quantitative research: small size of data, flexible design, in-depth analysis to describe the socio-cultural phenomenon being the part of procedure (insider) but not generalizable.

References

Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, Oxford University Press, pp. 15-45.

Nunan, D., & David, N. (1992). Research methods in language learning. Cambridge University Press, pp. 8-18.