The theme for week 40 was ”Quantitative research”. I found this theme a bit easier to understand compared to the previous ones. Maybe it is because I have encountered the terms Quantitative and Qualitative research during my bachelor thesis. My contribution the past week was equal to the other weeks. I have read Ilias Bergströms papper ”Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality" and I also read the paper ”Internet and social media use as a Resource Among Homeless youth” by Rice and Barman-Adhikari, which was my own choice. I participated in both the lecture and the seminar as well. Like all the other weeks I feel like it is the seminars I learn from and that helps me understand the theme. Last week during the seminar we discussed the mening and also the benefits and limitations of the two terms ”qualitative” and ”quantitative” research. Also terms as "objective data" and "subjective data" was something we discussed.
Quantitative research is often use when you have or need a bigger focus group, the result is often numbers or data that is easy to keep statics on. The limitation is that you need to know exactly what you want to focus on and what question you want to answer. One example we talked about during the seminar is big data. At first we discussed that quantitative methods was objective, until we realized that when using big data, you have to make an active choice of which data you want to focus on. The numbers and data becomes subjective since they are chosen from your aspects.
When it comes to qualitative research we all agreed that the data was subjective since you often need to interpret the data that comes from interviews. We said that qualitative data is often more complex but also gives a broader image. The limitations might be that the focus group is often smaller than a quantitative one, sometimes almost to small to represent the conclusion in the result. On the other hand if you have a bigger focus group it will also take much longer time.
Science there are both advantages and disadvantages with quantitative as well as qualitative researches we said that if you are doing a research you have to start with a question and then find the best method. Sometimes it is better to use both, as long as you plan your analyze.
Hi,
SvaraRaderaYou sum up all important concepts of this week's topic.
Still, I have to disagree to some extent. You say, that data from qualitative research is subjective. I do not think so. The qualitative collection of data might be prone to more subjectiveness than quantitative methods are, but there are ways for researchers to fight against it and to reduce the subjectiveness in the study.
One example is the test- coders in a transcriptive conversation analysis. Their work ensures that the most objective result can be achieved.
Other than that, good work!
Hi Sanna,
SvaraRaderaYou written a well summarized reflective post about this themes topic! I agree with you that all data that's used in research are, in a way, subjective, but I'll have to remind you that Illias pointed out that data in it self, is neither subjective or objective, it just is! The subjectiveness emerges when the researcher picks out certain data, where the choice most possibly is based on several inherent factors of the researcher, such us previous knowledge, experience, their child hood and so forth. One can try to be as objective as you can, but what data that's chosen is always affected by the researcher and therefore, in a sense, subjective!
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI think that you have an interesting discussion on collecting objective data with the help of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
To add to your discussion on quantitative methods:
I think that an example of focusing on a minor set of data from a big set of data is when a questionnaire consists of predefined answers. In this case the answers lead to not collecting all types of answers to a question. Instead a certain amount of alternatives are presented, which can be discussed in terms of leading to objective data or not.
Great reflection with a clear explanation of the discussions held on the different topics!