Qualitative Research vs Quantitative Research

What is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative research is a type of market research that is exploratory and seeks to understand people’s attitudes, motivations and behaviors. This type of research often focuses on small numbers of subjects at an in-depth level and typically produces rich responses through intensive probing. Results are measured in many ways, but in general, the researcher looks for themes and patterns that may have emerged from the research. Only qualitative research can solicit such intuitive, highly subjective personal input. Common examples of qualitative research include in-depth interviews (IDIs), focus groups, bulletin boards, participant observation, and ethnographic observation.

Why would I choose to engage in Qualitative research vs. Quantitative research?

Qual and quant research methods complement each other and can both be very valuable. Quantitative research tools, such as surveys, provide quantifiable results that can be measured using mathematical techniques. The decision of which type of research to use depends on the type of information you are hoping to obtain. In general, if you are attempting to generate insights and hypotheses or answer questions which include: In what way? Through what thought process? What is the connection between attitude and behavior? Qualitative research is most likely your answer. Quantitative research attempts to answer questions such as how many? And how much? In general, qualitative research generates rich, detailed and valid (process) data that contribute to in-depth understanding of the context. Quantitative research generates reliable population based and generalizable data and is well suited to establishing cause-and-effect relationships. At times, quantitative and qualitative methods can be combined in the same study, and often, qualitative research will precede or follow quantitative research. Conducting qualitative research can be a lengthy process with recruitment, sessions, and content analysis, but with Discuss.io’s platform, this time is reduced dramatically.

How many participants will I need to interview?

For quantitative, measurable studies, considering your sample size is important to achieve statistical significance with your results. Your population size, confidence level, and confidence interval will dictate your required sample size. Qualitative studies are not designed to be mathematically measured, and therefore, there is no simple answer to how many respondents to include.  In short, you should include as many respondents as it takes to help you reach your goal of hypothesis generation, understanding people’s reaction to a concept, etc. Additionally, due to the in-depth and labor-intensive nature of qualitative studies, researchers typically do not have the resources to generate large sample sizes. Often, qualitative research can help formulate an ensuing round of qualitative research which, if done correctly, can provide statistically significant results.

Do I need a moderator?

Discuss.io provides a DIY service to help you reduce your costs while obtaining the information you need. Some people choose to enlist independent moderators to lead the discussion with IDIs or focus groups. Advantages can include the removal of potential for bias and the trained expertise of the moderator. We provide the flexibility for you to moderate on your own, or to hire a moderator/service to conduct the interviews for you through Discuss.io’s plaform. It’s your choice.

How do I analyze my qualitative research results?

The results of a qualitative research are found not only in the words people say, but in their tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, etc. they use while saying the words. Discuss.io provides you with the opportunity to replay your sessions at any time, or to share it with a third party. In addition to giving you the option to upgrade to human-generated transcripts, Discuss.io provides automatic, machine generated transcriptions on all sessions. Often, researchers will use a coding system with transcripts to group themes and interconnections that emerge repeatedly.

Learn more about Discuss.io’s qualitative video platform