The answer to this question is within each of the words you have stated here.
Qualitative research, in short, is used when the meaning of something needs to be found. For example, qualitative research is asking a question such as 'Why are certain people in debt?' or 'What it means to be a child whose mother has recently died?' In basic words, qualitative research does not result in the obtaining of statistics, numbers or calculations.
Instead, the result of qualitative research is merely explained in words and descriptions of what the studies found. For example, if the researcher found that they found the people in debt to be very funny, care-free, friendly individuals, the research would explain this in the same sort of words. The researcher would report on the friendliness of the people they interviewed and how they all seemed to house a funny and care-free streak in their personality. If you want to find the meaning of something and describe it accurately, qualitative research is certainly the one to choose.
Quantitative research is of course, the complete opposite, and again, the clue is in the name. It is called quantitative research because it works with numbers, quantities and statistics.
Let's say a new drug was just created to help improve the lung health of a smoker. Quantitative researchers would get together a group of approximately 100 volunteer smokers and would prescribe them a series of the drug to take once a day for a whole month. Quantitative researchers would most likely ask them to breathe into an apparatus to record their length of breath and quality of oxygen daily. At the end of the trial, all of the 100 smokers' breath tests would be analysed to come up with an accurate result; for example, 80 out of 100 smokers' lung health improved.
The words may be similar but the differences are large!
Qualitative research, in short, is used when the meaning of something needs to be found. For example, qualitative research is asking a question such as 'Why are certain people in debt?' or 'What it means to be a child whose mother has recently died?' In basic words, qualitative research does not result in the obtaining of statistics, numbers or calculations.
Instead, the result of qualitative research is merely explained in words and descriptions of what the studies found. For example, if the researcher found that they found the people in debt to be very funny, care-free, friendly individuals, the research would explain this in the same sort of words. The researcher would report on the friendliness of the people they interviewed and how they all seemed to house a funny and care-free streak in their personality. If you want to find the meaning of something and describe it accurately, qualitative research is certainly the one to choose.
Quantitative research is of course, the complete opposite, and again, the clue is in the name. It is called quantitative research because it works with numbers, quantities and statistics.
Let's say a new drug was just created to help improve the lung health of a smoker. Quantitative researchers would get together a group of approximately 100 volunteer smokers and would prescribe them a series of the drug to take once a day for a whole month. Quantitative researchers would most likely ask them to breathe into an apparatus to record their length of breath and quality of oxygen daily. At the end of the trial, all of the 100 smokers' breath tests would be analysed to come up with an accurate result; for example, 80 out of 100 smokers' lung health improved.
The words may be similar but the differences are large!