Defining Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Analyzing the Origins of Modern and Postmodern Research Methodology
Oct 8, 2009
After the fall of the Roman Empire, much of the philosophies and sciences that were pioneered by Greco-Roman culture were destroyed and or devalued by Europeans. The period that followed the fall of Rome — characterized by the rise of spirituality and the decline of formal science —was known as the Middle Ages. Near the end of the Middle Ages, a group of Europeans like Galileo and Petrarch began to reject the premise that everything can simply be explained by the scripture alone, and this ultimately sparked a rebirth in scientific exploration.
The Birth of Quantitative Research
It will be this rebirth (Renaissance) that brought about what many refer to today as quantitative research. In quantitative research, the aim is to find truth not by looking towards God or the gods, but by analyzing the world and using reason. One of the major aims of quantitative research became to eliminate human fallacy from the truth of the environment by disassociating the human animal from his or her own research.
Numbers give validity to studies, as numbers quantify the differences and or similarities between or amongst variables. Statistics and quantifiers became obligatory in study real world phenomena. Nonetheless, after a while, it became obvious that this type of research was not effective in predicting all types of issues especially those that involved human interaction.
The Rise of Qualitative Research
Consequently, during the 1900s, a new era came forth that introduced a different way of examining the world and its phenomena. What resulted from this need for a new way of seeing the world was qualitative research. Qualitative research seeks not to eliminate the bias of the researcher from his or her studies, but seeks to use it as a way to better understand the phenomena.
The major assumption of qualitative research is that there are many ways of seeing the same thing especially when humans and cultures are concerned and that the researchers’ observations of the world are crucial to the ultimate outcome of the research. That is in opposition to the major assumption of quantitative research, which assumes that truth can only be found in numbers and statistics away from the biases of individuals.
With that stark difference, it took many quantitative researchers a long time to accept qualitative research as a viable method of studying the world. Today, most hard sciences like physics, biology, and chemistry use quantitative research while most social sciences like education, psychology, and sociology use qualitative research. Although it has taken time, qualitative research has finally become a widely accepted type of research.
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