Research Guides: Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Introduction

Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

This guide provides an overview of quantitative and qualitative social science research methods. The table below provides an outline of some of the attributes of each.

For more information, see these definitions from The Sage encyclopedia of social science research methods (Emich login required):

Quantitative and qualitative methods are the two main categories of empirical research.

	Quantitative	Qualitative
Perspectives	experimental statistical positivist	naturalistic ethnographic phenomenological anthropological interpretive constructivist
Focus or Goals	describe with statistics test theories show relationships predict obtain a single true reality	develop understanding and meaning describe naturally occuring behavior describe multiple realities
Design	structured predetermined specific contrived	emergent evolving flexible natural holistic
Techniques	experiments questionnaires surveys structured observations or interviews	observations open-ended interviews field research case studies
Data Analysis	deductive statistical	interpretive inductive ongoing searching for themes text analysis

Adapted from: McMillan, J. H. (2012). Educational research: Fundamentals for the consumer (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.