There are few things more useful in developing and implementing strategies than reliable data. The only drawback is that this information can be difficult to understand, which results in many business owners knowing nothing about their own research.
When starting a company or building a product, most people ask themselves the question: qualitative or quantitative research? Given the importance of coming up with a good strategy, this is not an easy question to answer.
Here is a quick look at the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative research.
What Is Quantitative Research?
Quantitative research is a study of numerical data whose purpose is to measure the strength and direction of relationships between variables. Quantitative research uses statistics to make sense of numerical data.
Quantitative research is based on numerical data gathered from different types of research methods, such as questionnaires, structured interviews, and statistical analysis.
Quantitative research involves questions that can be answered by counting or measuring, such as, how many people purchased a product? How many people are satisfied with the customer service? What are the demographics of customers in different age groups?
For your study to be quantitative, you need to use numerical data to either prove or disprove your hypothesis.
For example, a quantitative research about a new product launch could use data like the average consumption of products in the category among the target population, the number of competitors and their individual market share, pricing points, and the marketing budget required to launch a brand awareness campaign, to mention a few.
This type of research helps you to understand your market and target audience, so you can make informed decisions about your product or service.
The biggest advantage of quantitative research is the ability to analyze large volumes of data and make conclusions based on that data.
Difference Between Qualitative And Quantitative Research
The main difference is this – Qualitative research methods include the collection of data through the use of open-ended questions, unstructured interviews, or observations, whereas, Quantitative research focuses on gathering numerical data and making generalizations about groups of people, situations, or phenomena.
Understanding human behavior and its governing reasons are the ultimate goals of Qualitative research. The discipline explores the “why” and “how” of decision-making.
Quantitative data collection methods are more structured than qualitative data collection ones.
When you need to gather a large amount of information from a group of people, there are many ways to do so. In quantitative research, data can be collected using a variety of methods, including surveys, interviews, observation, and online polls.
A good researcher knows when to use qualitative research (to understand opinions) vs quantitative research (to test objectively).
For example, if you want to know what people think about a particular topic, then qualitative research would be best; but if you want to determine how many people are aware of a particular issue, then quantitative research would be better.
When you use both qualitative and quantitative research methods in your surveys, you will gain results that reach a lot of people as well as deeper insights from those people. With the right question types and analysis, you can use quantitative research to gain statistically significant insights into your target audience’s attitudes and behaviors.
Qualitative questions are useful for gathering detailed feedback on open-ended topics like:
Customer satisfaction. Qualitative questions let customers explain how they feel about your company’s products or services, and why they feel that way.
Employee engagement. Use open-ended questions to solicit employee feedback on company culture, management practices, benefits, and more.
Service performance. Learn why customers choose your brand over competitors’ by asking for the specific reasons for their decision.
Market research. Open-ended questions help you identify the most important factors that influence customers’ purchasing decisions in your market.
Quantitative research is ideal for:
- Collecting data at scale (e.g., using survey software)
- Reaching a large number of respondents in a short period of time
- Analyzing trends that apply to large groups of people (e.g., gender differences)
- Highlighting broad patterns or relationships between variables
- Predicting likelihoods based on certain factors (e.g., age, income)
- Driving the direction of future quantitative studies (i.e., hypothesis testing)
Importance Of Quantitative Research
The importance of quantitative research is that it provides an objective way to measure things, as well as a means of testing theories. Additionally, the results of quantitative research may be more easily replicated by other researchers.
Quantitative research is conducted in an effort to find numbers and statistical analysis to determine relationships between two or more variables. The process involves taking data from various sources and then organizing it into a format that can be used for statistical analysis.
One advantage of quantitative research is its ability to measure hard numbers and facts. This makes it much simpler to analyze data.
For example, if you wanted to know the average income of people living in a certain area, all you would have to do is calculate the number of participants in your study who earn above and below a certain amount. You could also compare this data with other areas to see which has the highest average income levels.
Another advantage is that quantitative research allows researchers to replicate their findings using different samples or methods. The ability to replicate results ensures accuracy and consistency in results obtained from different studies conducted on similar topics over time.
Furthermore, this type of research may reveal new insights into how something works because it focuses on measurable relationships rather than just observations about what happens in nature or human behavior itself.
Characteristics Of Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is the type of research that most people think about when they hear the word “research”. It involves creating statistical models, analyzing data, and using mathematical theories to understand how things work.
Quantitative research is used to identify factors that affect relationships between variables. Quantitative research is widely used in psychology, economics, demography, and marketing. It is often used in natural sciences, such as biology and chemistry, and in social sciences, such as sociology and psychology. Quantitative research involves the use of computational, mathematical, or statistical techniques.
For example, if a researcher believes that watching television makes people more violent, he or she may use quantitative methods to test this theory by counting the number of violent acts depicted in a week’s worth of programming and comparing it with the number of violent crimes committed for the same time period.
Characteristics Of Quantitative Research
These are some essential characteristics of Quantitative research:
- The focus is on measurement, analysis, and prediction of phenomena through the use of mathematical models and theories.
- Quantitative research’s objective is to obtain information about the current status of a given phenomenon.
- The focus is on variables and the relationships between them.
- The researcher can manipulate variables, which is why experiments are often used in quantitative research.
- Quantitative research includes formal data collection methods.
- The results are based on large sample sizes, so the results have high statistical power and are more likely to be statistically significant (i.e., not due to chance).
- Data is analyzed using statistical techniques.
- Quantitative research typically uses deductive reasoning.
- Variables must be identified and measured using reliable instruments and procedures; using multiple methods of measurement increases the reliability and validity of results (triangulation).
The design of a quantitative research question must be structured or ‘closed’ so that it can be answered using a predetermined response format (usually dichotomous or multiple choice) or scaled responses.
The design of the quantitative research question should not allow respondents to answer in their own words. This will make it impossible to use the data in any meaningful way.
The quantitative design will measure whether a change has occurred from a specific point in time, but will not determine why a change has occurred.
Quantitative research questions are best for giving an overview or analysis of a particular business, industry, or topic. Therefore, they need to be researched in detail so that the researcher can be confident that enough information exists to answer the questions. If there is no literature available on the topic, then it is unlikely that you will have sufficient knowledge to investigate the topic effectively.
Conducting thorough industry research is crucial in ensuring that the quantitative research questions are well-informed and grounded in existing knowledge.
Strengths Of Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is often used to ask questions that can be answered with numerical data. It has a number of strengths:
- Standardized data collection
This means that the same instruments are used with all the participants in a study, and the data is collected in a uniform way. This makes it easier to compare results across groups of participants or to test hypotheses on a larger scale.
- Objectivity
The standardization of both data collection and analysis can make results from studies more objective than those with qualitative research methods. The use of statistics and hard numbers can also give your findings authority when you publish them online or in a print journal. This objectivity makes it easier for researchers to explain why their findings are reliable and true.
- Difficult Data Collection
Quantitative studies can also provide researchers with data about phenomena that are difficult or impossible to measure directly, such as attitudes, beliefs, and values.
- Efficiency
Quantitative research allows for larger sample sizes, which increases the reliability of your results. It also moves quickly and can produce results that are easy to share with others, because they’re often presented as percentages.
- Generalizability
You might find that what you learn applies not only to your research participants but also to people who weren’t included in your study. For example, if you ask 1,000 people what’s important to them about their job, you might find out some things about how work affects happiness that could be true for other people as well.
- Evidence Collection
The design of a quantitative study allows the researcher to collect numerical data that can be analyzed using statistical tests. This provides an opportunity for the researcher to support or refute theories by collecting evidence that is statistically significant.
Weaknesses Of Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is a useful tool for measuring and describing the world as it exists, but it has its weaknesses as well.
Quantitative data is often criticized for being too detached from real-life situations; this criticism typically stems from the fact that the data collected tends to be structured and limited in nature.
Some have argued that quantitative analysis does not provide people with a full picture of complex issues or human behavior since it is concerned with measuring and counting specific variables.
Quantitative researchers are concerned with how much and how many, but their methods don’t allow them to understand why something happens. They can find correlations between factors, but not necessarily causes.
For example, they might discover that people who drink more coffee have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than people who drink less coffee, but they can’t conclude that drinking coffee causes heart problems.
Quantitative research doesn’t always take into account a human element. People make decisions based on more than just mathematical calculations, and that’s an important part of the human experience. It’s also difficult to account for the subjective nature of human experience in quantitative methods such as surveys and questionnaires.
Quantitative research tends to minimize the role of the researcher in the research process, thereby reducing the amount of information that can be obtained on contextual factors.
Quantitative research tends not to generate new ideas or shed light on unexplored areas because they focus on testing hypotheses derived from existing theories and concepts.
Types Of Quantitative Research
There are five main types of Quantitative research:
- Descriptive Research
Descriptive research produces a description of what already exists in a group or population. It usually involves taking a sample from the population in order to describe a certain characteristic of the entire group.
It does not seek to explain why things are a certain way or how they came about but rather describes what is and what is not.
- Correlational Research
Correlational research investigates relationships between variables as well as how these variables interact with one another.
Unlike descriptive research, correlational research goes beyond description by seeking to identify the strength, direction, and nature of relationships between two or more variables.
While it cannot be used to determine causality due to its correlational nature, it can be used to predict outcomes based on the relationship that exists between variables.
- Experimental Research
Experimental research involves testing a hypothesis by conducting experiments using various methods such as controlled laboratory-based scenarios, field experiments, and randomized trials.
Experimental design involves the manipulation and measurement of variables to observe their effect on each other. This enables researchers to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables.
- Survey Research
Survey research is a quantitative method that involves the usage of different research instruments such as questionnaires or schedules to gather data.
Surveys are usually done in cases where it is difficult to conduct an experiment such as in the case of social sciences.
The most common forms of survey research include mail surveys, telephone interviews, and face-to-face interviews.
- Causal-Comparative Research
Causal-comparative research is a type of research that is used when the researcher has limited control over variables, such as in a field experiment. This type of research does not involve randomization of participants or experimental manipulation, as in true experimental studies.
The name causal-comparative research comes from two terms, causal and comparative. Causal implies that the study attempts to determine whether one variable causes another. Comparative indicates that groups are compared but not randomly assigned to groups by the researcher.
When To Use Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is a great way to collect data on a large scale when you have many respondents.
This can be useful when you need a lot of data points and/or want to record responses for future analysis. It’s also good for surveys that are complex and/or have any questions.
If your audience is large (across multiple locations, or across countries) or if you have a smaller audience but want them to complete your survey in their own language, quantitative research is the way to go.
If your business is just getting started with market research, quantitative methods will give you an excellent baseline of information upon which to build later qualitative research projects.
Qualitative research gets to the heart of your problem, giving you much more detailed data than quantitative methods would.
Qualitative research is more appropriate for projects that:
- require more in-depth answers than “yes” or “no”
- have small sample sizes
- require detailed interviews or observations
- are exploratory in nature
Is Qualitative Or Quantitative Research Better?
A good thing to keep in mind is that there isn’t really a “right” answer – it all depends on what you are trying to find out!
Qualitative and Quantitative research is often seen as opposing approaches to research, but they both have their advantages and disadvantages. While there is a lot of debate between these two types of studies, they are not mutually exclusive and can work together to generate meaningful results.
Qualitative research gathers information that seeks to describe a topic more than measure it. Qualitative research is often used to conduct market analysis and identify consumer trends, motivations and behaviors.
Quantitative research is the best way to reveal and prove a cause-and-effect relationship. If you want to make an argument about why something is happening, quantitative research can help you do that.
For example, if you wanted to say that more guns in the hands of private citizens lowered crime rates, you could run a study with data on crime rates and gun ownership across states and find statistical correlations between them.
Qualitative research describes and interprets what people say and do. Instead of using numbers to describe some phenomenon, it uses words and pictures instead. It’s best for exploring questions that don’t have clear answers yet, like how people feel about a new product or how they respond to a new marketing campaign.
For example, if you wanted to know how people reacted when they saw your new TV commercial, the best way would probably be to show it to people in a focus group and tape their reactions. The group moderator might ask some follow-up questions and people might comment on each other’s reactions, but the goal is less about making an argument than understanding what’s happening.
Is Survey Qualitative Or Quantitative Research?
A survey can be considered qualitative or quantitative depending on the type of questions asked.
Quantitative surveys ask closed-ended questions – those requiring a “yes” or “no”, a number rating, or a selection from a predetermined list of answers (e.g., choose from “Excellent”, “Good”, etc.). These kinds of questions allow for analysis that can be statistically inferred across the entire population being surveyed.
Qualitative surveys (also known as unstructured interviews) ask open-ended questions that require respondents to provide free-form answers, which cannot be statistically inferred across the entire population being surveyed and therefore may not scale well if the sample size is very large.
Is Questionnaire A Quantitative Research?
A questionnaire is a series of questions or other prompts for gathering information about a subject. Although many researchers use questionnaires for statistical analysis, this is not always the case. So, yes, a questionnaire can be both, qualitative as well as quantitative, depending on the type of questions it contains.
The questionnaire is an integral part of survey research. It is a written or verbal series of questions pertaining to a specific topic, to which the respondent provides answers.
Questionnaires are usually designed to obtain information from a large number of respondents on one or more occasions.
The structured interview is normally used where it is necessary to keep close control over the questioning and to ensure that all respondents are asked exactly the same questions in precisely the same way.
The design process can be complex and time-consuming and many aspects need to be decided by the researcher before starting to write up the questionnaire:
- How will you distribute it? By hand? By mail? Online?
- What type of language will you use? Formal? Informal? Will it be general, or will specific jargon be included?
- How long will your questionnaire be?
Is Statistics Quantitative Research?
Quantitative research involves statistical analysis, such as calculating averages or percentages in surveys. In its most basic form, you count things, and then you make conclusions based on the numbers — usually about how common something is.
Statistics is a quantitative research method. It is used to quantify opinions, attitudes, and behaviors. This method involves the statistical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, or surveys. The survey could be administered through personal interviews, telephone conversations, or the use of online survey forms.
This method is the most widely used method in business research. Most businesses make decisions based on quantitative methods. It is easy to administer with a large population size by using computers for ease of calculation and preparation of reports. It is also easy to understand and implement because it uses statistical terms that are easy to understand and interpret. This method is also used in both small and large businesses to make decisions based on quantified data.
Is Quasi-Experimental Quantitative Research?
Quasi-Experimental research is another type of experimental research design. Therefore, it is quantitative research. The difference between them is that the quasi-experimental design does not include a random sample. With this type of design, a researcher will create an experimental group and a control group, but not through random selection. Instead, the researcher will identify participants in each group based on criteria such as specific characteristics or behavior.
One advantage of Quasi-Experimental research is that it is easier to carry out than randomized experiments. It can also be less expensive because it does not require random assignment to groups.
However, the researcher may have trouble determining whether the results from these groups are credible because there could be mitigating factors impacting the results that were not controlled for in the study’s design.
Does Quantitative Research Have Hypothesis?
Yes, quantitative research methods do have hypotheses. In fact, the whole idea of quantitative research is to test a hypothesis.
The hypothesis of quantitative research must always be stated in a clear manner. This is because the hypothesis helps to explain the relationship that exists between the different variables that have been used for the study.
However, quantitative research does not have a single hypothesis; it always has more than one hypothesis. The number and nature of these hypotheses will depend on the scope and coverage of the study or even research. The researcher will use these hypotheses to conclude whether there was any correlation between the variables that were used, or rather whether one variable had an effect on another variable.
Does Quantitative Research Use Interviews?
Interviews in quantitative research are often structured. This means that the interviewer asks the same questions, in the same order, of every respondent.
This is so that researchers are able to make comparisons between groups of people and draw conclusions about them.
For example, if a survey was looking at how many hours a week people spend on homework, it would be useful to know the subject they are studying and their level of education. These questions would be asked before asking about study time specifically so that any differences between groups can be explored further.
Respondents are also given a limited number of response options to choose from, for example, 1-5 hours 6-10 hours 11-15 hours 16-20 hours 20+ hours.
Structured interviews also make it easier for data to be analyzed by computer programs or entered into databases.
Does Quantitative Research Focus On Human Experiences?
Quantitative research focuses on human experiences and looks into why people do certain things while others do not carry out the same actions at all.
Quantitative research is also known as positivist research.
It is a systematic process of collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting numerical data.
Quantitative researchers are involved in the entire research process from defining the problem to shaping the findings for presentation.
They use probability sampling techniques, which refer to selecting samples from a population in such a way that each individual has an equal chance of being selected.
How To Determine Sample Size For Quantitative Research?
There are several methods you can use to determine the sample size. Some methods include using statistic tables and online calculators. Other methods involve using formulas to estimate sample size.
1. Using Statistic Tables
The first method you can use to calculate sample size involves using statistic tables. You need two parameters to do this; they include a confidence level and margin of error.
2. Online Calculators
The second method is by using online calculators like Survey Monkey or Raosoft Sample Size Calculator. To use these calculators, you need to fill out information such as the population, confidence interval, and margin of error among others, and click on calculate button.
3. Using Formulas
A sample size formula can be used to calculate the appropriate sample size based on factors such as population size, the margin of error, and confidence level. There are various formulas you can choose from.
Cochran’s Sample Size Formula is a common one:
This formula can be used when one needs to determine the appropriate sample size for estimating a proportion or a percentage.
The formula is: n = (Z2*p*q)/e2;
where n = sample size; p = estimated proportion; q = 1-p; e = margin of error; Z = z-score for confidence level selected. For example, 0.05 for 95% confidence interval.
Is Quantitative Research Objective?
Quantitative research focuses on measurable concepts and uses precise measurements and analysis to answer a specific question. It is thoroughly objective in nature.
This type of research aims at testing theories by examining the relationship among variables with the help of different research tools. The relationship between variables can be causal or correlational.
In other words, quantitative researchers are more interested in determining whether the data gathered shows a true representation of the population under study.
Is Quantitative Research Scientific And Measurable?
The scientific and measurable characteristic of quantitative research is one of its greatest strengths. In fact, it’s the reason why so many scientists prefer quantitative research over qualitative research. Quantitative research can be reproduced and validated by other researchers, which makes the results generalizable and very reliable.
Because quantitative research is so reliable, it can be used to create a theory or model that accurately describes a phenomenon.
For example, because Newton’s laws of motion have been verified by countless experiments, we can use them to develop complex models for predicting how objects will behave in different situations.
The data can be obtained using various instruments such as questionnaires and surveys. Quantitative research gathers information that is measurable, such as age, number of hours worked, and so on.
The main objective of quantitative research is to measure phenomena. It allows for the collection of numerical data that can be analyzed in order to explain what is being measured. This type of research aims at verifying theories and hypotheses by means of observation and measurements of variables.
Quantitative research does not deal with subjective ideas or opinions, but with measurable facts. It uses a deductive approach to gather information from a large sample, which then can be used to infer conclusions about the population from which it was drawn.
It can be quite useful to understand what quantitative research is, particularly when you are doing some research of your own. By understanding more about the process, you will be better prepared to make quantitative research and turn it into useful information.
Quantitative research is one of the more scientific/technical forms of market research. It’s a good way to get specific and detailed data (hence quantitative). Not only will you get statistics, numbers, etc., but you’ll actually truly learn something. It’s a great way to find out exactly what your audience wants.
Ultimately, both types of research complement one another. If you don’t have enough data yet, qualitative research can help you identify potential problems in your quantitative study. Even if you have an abundance of data from a previous research project, conducting a qualitative study prior to analyzing your quantitative data and drawing conclusions can lead to better results.
