Qualitative Vs Quantitative: The Real Differences #qualitative #quantitative #researchwriting #literaturereview #researchgap

Your supervisor asks, "Is this qualitative or quantitative?" You say qualitative because you are doing interviews. But they tell you, "Well, you are counting themes and are you end up being confused?" Yeah, it's what the difference actually is and why it matters. Let me clear these opponents and for all. The difference is not about interviews versus surveys. It's about the type of data and what you are trying to understand. Let me break it down very quickly. Quantitative needs numbers, measurements, you want to know how much something happens. You need numbers, statistics and measurements. You analyze based on statistical test, correlation, comparisons. The goal is to measure, compare, test relationships, generalize. In qualitative, you need words, meanings and experiences. You are asking why, how, what does it mean? What's the experience? The kind of data you need are words, narratives, descriptions, themes. And your analysis is coding, theme, identification, interpretation. The goal is to understand, explore, describe the depth. People say interviews are qualitative, surveys are quantitative. That's not complete. Interviews can be quantitative if you are counting responses. So this can be qualitative. If you have open-ended questions, you analyze thematically. What matters is your data and analysis. Look at your research question. Does it ask for measurements or meanings, numbers or narratives? How much or what it's like? That data means qualitative versus quantitative. Then commit and do it rigorously. I'll see you the next one.