Understanding Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Key Differences Explained (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: When doing research, you often have to choose between quantitative and qualitative research. In this video, I'll explain the differences between the two. Hi, I'm Jessica from Scribbr, here to help you achieve your academic goals. Let's start with the differences between quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research allows you to test hypotheses. So you can expect to see data collected with this approach will mainly be expressed in numbers and graphs. It also requires a larger sample size. These numbers are then analyzed through math and statistical analysis. On the other hand, qualitative research allows you to formulate a hypothesis. So yes, opposite to quantitative research, this approach will yield data that's expressed in words and also require fewer respondents. The data is then analyzed by summarizing, categorizing, and interpreting. Alright, now we know the differences, but when to use which? It's very simple. If your goal is to confirm or test a theory or hypothesis, you're mostly going to opt for the quantitative approach. But if you want to understand or explore an idea, then you should go for the qualitative approach. There's also a third approach, which combines quantitative with qualitative. And this is called the mixed method. Let's see how it applies in a concrete example, shall we? Say we want to find out how satisfied students are in their studies. I'll show you how both approaches can answer this question. If I'm taking the quantitative approach, I can survey 300 students at the university and ask them questions like, on a scale from 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with your professors? With the collected data, I will run a statistical analysis and draw conclusions that might sound something like, on average, students rate their professors 4.4 out of 5. But if I want to go for a qualitative approach, then I can conduct interviews with 15 students and ask them open-ended questions such as, how satisfied are you with your studies? Or, what can be done to improve the study program? Then, I transcribe the interviews and try to find patterns or recurring themes. For example, something like students would like to have more one-on-one guidance from their professors. For the mixed method approach, you first conduct interviews with the students. Through that, you gain new insights and come up with a hypothesis. For example, you learn through interviews that students prefer individual assignments over group projects. Then you test whether this applies to a larger scale of students using survey research. It's also possible to do it the other way around. You can start off with a survey to see the bigger picture, then use interviews to understand the reason behind it. Now, I will go over data collection for both approaches in this video very briefly, but if you want to know more, just check the article in the description. To collect quantitative data, you can, for example, survey people online, in person, or over the phone, conduct experiments, or observe subjects. On the other hand, collecting qualitative data can be quite different. You can do an interview, get a focus group, do a case study, or a literature review. And that's it for this video. If you've learned something, give this video a like, and if you have any questions, ask away and I will reply. See you in our next video.