Quantitative methods are generally concerned with counting and measuring aspects of social life, while

qualitarive methods are more concerned with producing discursive descriptions and exploring social
actors' meanings and interpretations.
When To Use Qualitative or Quantitative Method

Quantitative method and Qualitative method

The researcher is likely to have very limited or no contact with the people being studied: The use of some
quantitative methods, such as mailed questionnaires, structured observation, and unobtrusive methods that
involve the use of secondary data, require no face-to-face or verbal contact at all. When there is contact,
such as in structured interviewing and experiments, it is formal and of limited duration. However, even in
these cases, the researcher may have no contact if assistants are employed to carry out these tasks. This
maintenance of distance from the people being studied, and the fanatical resistance to any form of
personal disclosure or emotional involvement by the researcher, is largely practised in the belief that it
will ensure that objectivity is achieved.

requires an extended and i\uensive period of involvement in some social world. The most extreme form
is pa~ticipant observation in w ich the researcher can become fully immersed in the spcial actors' world
with all the levels of personal involvement that this entailS. Such qualitative methods allow the
researcher to become an 'insider' and ~o discover the social actors' culture and worldviews. The contact
and involvement in in-depth, unstructured interviewing lies somewhere between participa11t
observation and structured interviewing, and will involve varying degrees of personal involvement and
disclosure on the part of the researcher. When a series 1 of in-depth interviews is conducted with the
same person, the level of invol\'.ement is likely to be hig~er. Rather than attempt to adopt the position
of a detached 'scientific' observer, qualitative researchers may deliberately choose to 'go n~tive', to
allow themselves to become part of the world of the researched, to be sec)uced by the social actors'
constructed reality. Some would argue that, · without a period of immersion in a social world, no
adequate understanding of it can1 be achieved. While it is probably not possible for a researcher to go
completely native, a test of whether the social actors' meanings have been 'discovered' can only be
based on J.hether the researcher has developed the capacity to interact successfully in a particular social
context. To achieve this, it is necessary for the researcher to become as subjective as possible rather
than to try to adopt some kind of objective stance, at least at the data collection stage.