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Can I Combine Qualitative and Quantitative Methods?

Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,

Technical Operations, Statswork

info@statswork.com

I. INTRODUCTION

Qualitative and Quantitative research provides a deep understanding of the

problem in separate manner. Qualitative

researches are often to be of understanding

the personal views of the people, whereas

quantitative researches are of concrete

statistics and generalization of the

population through the samples. However,

there has been an increasing trend from

early 90’s in combining the quantitative

and qualitative research which in turns

delivers significant insights about the

problem. In this blog, I will list out the

benefits of combining both researches to

give meaningful results of the study.

In earlier studies, the qualitative

researches are being conducted face-

to-face. However, with the advent of

digital technologies, the qualitative

research can be conducted through

online mode where the respondents

share the information which you need

in less time. In addition, the qualitative

and quantitative data can be collected

with the same survey and with the

same respondents in this online mode

of data collection.

Having the data collected from the

online survey, now the researcher can

develop a hypothesis of the problem

whether it is of understanding the

problem or validate a hypothesis of

interest (qualitative) or to explore the

scope of the problem (quantitative)

with the same respondent group.

Combining the qualitative and

quantitative research often saves time

in the case of market research analysis.

For example, consider a online

shopping survey, here the researcher

wants to know the pattern of people

purchasing the product and the pattern

of people not purchasing the product

from a website. The research problem

is multi-fold, i.e, the people may add a

product to the cart and leaves the

website without shopping or the people

may do a window shopping or the

people may search for products for the

new arrivals or the people may leave

the website because of no trial

experience without purchasing. Thus,

the problem can be taken as both

qualitative and quantitative in a single

sample survey. Combining the two

research may lead to reduce the time of

data collection, reduce the cost, and

resources.

As in the case of earlier example, the

combination of both qualitative and

quantitative research gives more deeper

insights about the problem and it allow us

to satisfy the customer needs in a timely

manner with a proper decision through the

statistical analysis.

The researches in early 80’s are often of

either qualitative or quantitative in nature.

However, you can optimize the research

interest with mixing both at a time.

Though it may not sounds good in certain

area of research, but it becomes a common

paradigm in many statistical practices.

Qualitative and quantitative methods can

be combined at various point of view, i.e

either at the time of data collection or at

the analysis of data. In practice, there are

three different research designs to combine

these both research in a single survey.

They are

Explanatory Design

Exploratory Design

Parallel Convergence Design

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Let’s see each of this in detail.

II. EXPLANATORY DESIGN

In an explanatory design, there are two

possibilities of conducting a mixed

research (i) the observations are recorded

in qualitative manner and the analyses are

conducted using quantitative manner by

converting the text data into numbers say,

number of times good opinion recorded or

the number of times person purchased a

product, and (ii) collect a large sample for

quantitative study and from that collect a

sub sample with small size and conduct

qualitative research for getting more

detailed opinions about the problem.

Figure1. Explanatory Process Design

Let me explain you the second case with

an example. Suppose, the researcher is

interested in finding the shopping

experience of 10 mobile websites and

he/she constructed a questionnaire on the

topic and conducted a large comparative

study using quantitative measures. Then

with the statistical results, he/she wants to

explore the shopping experience in more

precise manner. So, small samples of say,

15 respondents are chosen from the

population and conducted a face-to-face

interview and analysed the data in

qualitative manner. Here the researcher

used a new set of 15 participants for the

study. However, one can select a sub

sample from the previous samples and

proceed with the analysis.

III. EXPLORATORY DESIGN

In an exploratory design, the study starts

from qualitative to quantitative.

Figure 2. Exploratory Process Design

Exploratory design is something like a

pilot study. First we make use of small

participants and test the research

hypothesis and then develop the idea to a

quantitative research.

IV. PARALLEL CONVERGENT

DESIGN

So far, we have seen that the data is being

collected separately that is either

quantitative or qualitative manner. Here, in

the case of parallel convergent design,

the qualitative and quantitative data is

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being collected simultaneously but

independently and taken forward for the

statistical data analysis. In analysing this

kind of mixed data, the research interest

often to compare and contrast the findings

of the study and identify if there is any

pattern in the data.

Figure 3. Parallel Convergent Process Design

Suppose a company executive wants to

identify patterns in the purchase of

products who are shopping from an online

store and who are shopping from the

showroom. Thus, the company executive

decided to conduct a qualitative research

for the persons shopping from showroom

and quantitative research for the online

shopping. Then the executive combines

and converge the findings to deliver

meaning insights to develop the business

standard.

In conclusion, If you still have a question

of whether to combine the qualitative and

quantitative research, then my answer is a

Big Yes! you can combine these two

according to the research needs and keep a

clear track of the data is collected and the

statistical analysis you use to deliver

proper inference of the problem.

REFERENCES

[1] Brewer, J. & Hunter, A. (1989) Multimethod

research: A synthesis of styles. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

[2] Bryman, A. (1992) Quantitative and qualitative

research: further reflections on their integration. In

Brannen, J. (ed) Mixing Methods: Qualitative and

Quantitative Research. Aldershot: Avebury.

[3] Caracelli, V.W. & Greene, J.C. (1993) Data analysis

strategies for mixed-method evaluation

designs. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis,

15(2), pp. 195-207.

[4] Carey, J.W. (1993) Linking qualitative and

quantitative methods: Integrating cultural factors into

public health. Qualitative Health Research, 3, pp. 298-

318.

[5] Cresswell, J.W. (1995) Research design: Qualitative

and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.