Please note that this differs from person to person and this is just what I feel.
Marketing research gives us an idea about the requirements of the customers. At times, a company asks about the feelings of the people like by asking them an open-ended question such as "How would you define your experience with service you were offered?” These form of questions takes into account the opinions of the people and are regarded as a qualitative form of research. The other form of research is quantitative deals mostly with the numbers like asking different questions such as to rate the service from 1-10 (Bryman, 2006).
Like two sides of the coin, quantitative and qualitative research both has its own merits and demerits. As marketers, if I’m asked to choose between these two, I would primarily focus on what type of information is needed. I would go with qualitative if the research requires in-depth, detailed insights while I’ll choose the opposite if the research demands a high volume of representative data which are measurable. I’ll also take into account the required skills, time and money to make a selection. Having said all those, I would stick with qualitative research if I’ve to choose it in general.
Let us use an example of a café to look further on my choice of qualitative research over quantitative. This café is located in the prime location with lots of people living nearby. Named as ABC Café, it specializes in selling high-quality momos. The problem with the café is decreasing sales as a result of less and less customer visiting it. The research needs to done to identify why the customers are choosing other outlets over it, which will help make decisions to turn things around. With the use of qualitative research, a select group of customers could be invited for a focus group interview where the customers can share their experiences, what they liked and disliked about the café, food and everything else required. This can be done with the involvement of a very small number of selective people and gives a picture of what needs to be continued and what needs to be improved (Mason, 2005). While if the quantitative research was to be used, it would require a large number of people and includes pre-defined answers for correspondence to choose between (Hiatt, 1986). It includes the scale of the satisfaction of the customers with regard to the service they received. These numbers won’t help the organization get to the root of the issues which can be done with the use of qualitative research also by asking open-ended questions and understanding the feelings, motivation, and preferences of the customers. This form of research is also a lot less expensive than quantitative research due to lesser time and people required to complete the research.
Furthermore, under qualitative research, we operate focusing on a wider angle as opposed to testing just a selected hypothesis. This under qualitative research helps to look at the entire phenomena to understand the problems or the situation with more clarity rather than just focusing on a certain hypothesis which may or may not be true. I like qualitative research more as they allow us to focus on how and why certain social phenomena occur. Like in most of the American and European nations, crossing the main streets or walking on one are considered to be jaywalking and is a punishable offense. If we are to conduct a qualitative research on jaywalking, we can explain why certain people jaywalk while other don’t rather than just saying that people do jaywalk. If we were to do the same research using quantitative research, it would have just given the figures of people jaywalking rather than why they do so.
To conclude, I would say that qualitative research expresses empathetic understanding while also explaining findings from the quantitative study by providing a wealth of in-depth information. Thus, I choose qualitative research over quantitative research for the reasons as stated above.
References
Bryman, A. (2006). Integrating quantitative and qualitative research: how is it done?. Qualitative Research, 6 (1).
Hiatt, J. F. (1986). Spirituality, medicine, and healing. Southern Medical Journal, 79, 736-743.
Mason, P. (2005). Visual data in applied qualitative research: lessons from experience. Qualitative Research, 5 (3).
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Please note that this differs from person to person and this is just what I feel.
Marketing research gives us an idea about the requirements of the customers. At times, a company asks about the feelings of the people like by asking them an open-ended question such as "How would you define your experience with service you were offered?” These form of questions takes into account the opinions of the people and are regarded as a qualitative form of research. The other form of research is quantitative deals mostly with the numbers like asking different questions such as to rate the service from 1-10 (Bryman, 2006).
Like two sides of the coin, quantitative and qualitative research both has its own merits and demerits. As marketers, if I’m asked to choose between these two, I would primarily focus on what type of information is needed. I would go with qualitative if the research requires in-depth, detailed insights while I’ll choose the opposite if the research demands a high volume of representative data which are measurable. I’ll also take into account the required skills, time and money to make a selection. Having said all those, I would stick with qualitative research if I’ve to choose it in general.
Let us use an example of a café to look further on my choice of qualitative research over quantitative. This café is located in the prime location with lots of people living nearby. Named as ABC Café, it specializes in selling high-quality momos. The problem with the café is decreasing sales as a result of less and less customer visiting it. The research needs to done to identify why the customers are choosing other outlets over it, which will help make decisions to turn things around. With the use of qualitative research, a select group of customers could be invited for a focus group interview where the customers can share their experiences, what they liked and disliked about the café, food and everything else required. This can be done with the involvement of a very small number of selective people and gives a picture of what needs to be continued and what needs to be improved (Mason, 2005). While if the quantitative research was to be used, it would require a large number of people and includes pre-defined answers for correspondence to choose between (Hiatt, 1986). It includes the scale of the satisfaction of the customers with regard to the service they received. These numbers won’t help the organization get to the root of the issues which can be done with the use of qualitative research also by asking open-ended questions and understanding the feelings, motivation, and preferences of the customers. This form of research is also a lot less expensive than quantitative research due to lesser time and people required to complete the research.
Furthermore, under qualitative research, we operate focusing on a wider angle as opposed to testing just a selected hypothesis. This under qualitative research helps to look at the entire phenomena to understand the problems or the situation with more clarity rather than just focusing on a certain hypothesis which may or may not be true. I like qualitative research more as they allow us to focus on how and why certain social phenomena occur. Like in most of the American and European nations, crossing the main streets or walking on one are considered to be jaywalking and is a punishable offense. If we are to conduct a qualitative research on jaywalking, we can explain why certain people jaywalk while other don’t rather than just saying that people do jaywalk. If we were to do the same research using quantitative research, it would have just given the figures of people jaywalking rather than why they do so.
To conclude, I would say that qualitative research expresses empathetic understanding while also explaining findings from the quantitative study by providing a wealth of in-depth information. Thus, I choose qualitative research over quantitative research for the reasons as stated above.
References
Bryman, A. (2006). Integrating quantitative and qualitative research: how is it done?. Qualitative Research, 6 (1).
Hiatt, J. F. (1986). Spirituality, medicine, and healing. Southern Medical Journal, 79, 736-743.
Mason, P. (2005). Visual data in applied qualitative research: lessons from experience. Qualitative Research, 5 (3).