Chapter 2

Quantitative and qualitative

research approaches
 What are concepts

• Concepts are:
– Building blocks of theory
– Labels that we give to elements of the social
world
– Categories for the organisation of ideas and
observations.
• Concepts are useful for:
– Providing an explanation of a certain aspect of
the social world
– Standing for things we want to explain
– Giving a basis for measuring variation.
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 Why measure?
• To delineate fine differences between
people, organisations, or any other unit of
analysis
• To provide a consistent device for gauging
distinctions
• To produce precise estimates of the degree
of the relationship between concepts
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 Indicators of concepts

• Produced by the operational definition of a

concept
• Less directly quantifiable than measures
• Common sense understandings of the form
a concept might take
• Multiple-indicator measures
– concept may have different dimensions
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 Why use more than one indicator?

• Single indicators may incorrectly classify

many individuals
• Single indicators may capture only a
portion of the underlying concept or be too
general
• Multiple indicators can capture different
dimensions of a concept
• Multiple indicators can make finer
distinctions between individuals
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 What does reliability mean?

• Stability
– is the measure stable over time?
• e.g. test–retest method
• Internal reliability
– are the indicators consistent?
• e.g. split-half method
• Inter-observer consistency
– is the measure consistent between observers?
Key concept 2.2
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 What does validity mean?

Does the indicator measure the concept?

It does if it has:
– Face validity (right for the concept?)
– Concurrent validity (supported by a relevant
criterion today?)
– Predictive validity (likely to be supported by a
relevant criterion tomorrow?)
– Construct validity (are useful hypotheses
produced?)
– Convergent validity (supported by results from
other methods?)
Key concept 2.3; Page 38
 Measurement

• Are instruments:
– reliable (i.e. consistent and stable)
– valid (i.e. do they really reflect the concept they
are supposed to be measuring)?
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 Causality

• Explanation
– why things are the way they are
• Direction of causal influence
– relationship between dependent & independent
variables
• Confidence
– in the researcher's causal inferences
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 Generalisation

• Can findings be generalised beyond the

confines of the particular context?
• Can findings be generalised from sample to
population?
• How representative are samples?
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 Replication

• Minimising contamination from researcher

biases or values
• Explicit description of procedures
• Control of conditions of study
• Ability to replicate in differing contexts
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Process of quantitative research
 Features of qualitative research

• Inductive view of relationship between

theory and research
– theories and concepts emerge from the data
• Interpretivist epistemology
• Constructionist ontology
• Emphasis on words/text rather than
numbers
• Diversity of approaches
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 Four traditions of qualitative
research
• Gubrium and Holstein (1997) suggest four
traditions of qualitative research:
1. Naturalism: seeks to understand social
reality in its own terms; ‘as it really is’.
2. Ethnomethodology: seeks to understand
how social order is created through talk
and interaction
3. Emotionalism: exhibits a concern with
subjectivity and gaining access to ‘inside’
experience
4. Postmodernism: emphasizes ‘method talk’
Process of qualitative research
 Qualitative research design

• Ethnography – immersion, direct

participation and observation in the field
• Phenomenological designs – researching
the world through the eyes of those with
lived experience
• Grounded theory based on data and
information collected.
• Case study research – in-depth study of
one or more individuals or phenomena in
context.
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 Methods to collect and analyse
qualitative data
• Direct observation
• Participant observation
• Qualitative interviews
• Surveys and open-ended, written
questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Language-based methods, for example,
discourse and conversation analysis
• Content analysis
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Techniques to analyse and interpret
data
• Coding
• Descriptive statistics and correlation
analysis
• Narrative analysis
• Content analysis
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 Concepts in qualitative data

• Blumer (1954) argued against the use of

definitive concepts in qualitative research:
– because the indicators ‘fix’ the concept,
– because what phenomena have in common
becomes more important than their variety.
– …and in favour of sensitising concepts:
• giving a general sense of reference and guidance,
• allowing discovery of varied forms of phenomena,
• capable of being gradually narrowed down
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Approaches to reliability and validity

1. Adapting concepts from quantitative

research:
– little change of meaning
– quality, rigour and wider potential
– external reliability (replication)
– internal reliability (inter-observer consistency)
– internal validity (good fit between data and
theory)
– external validity (generalisation).
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Approaches to reliability and validity

2. Alternative criteria
(Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
• Trustworthiness:
– credibility (a parallel for internal validity)
– transferability (a parallel for external validity)
– dependability (a parallel for reliability)
– confirmability (a parallel for objectivity).
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Approaches to reliability and validity

3. Midway position
(Hammersley, 1992)
• Validity’ criterion needs to be reformulated:
– empirical account must be plausible
– but cannot have direct access to social worlds
– assess credibility of researcher’s truth claims
– adequacy of evidence as ‘true representation’.
• ‘Relevance’ criterion
– contribution the study makes to the field
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 Preoccupations of qualitative
researchers
• Seeing through the eyes of those studied
• Detailed descriptions
– understanding the meanings people attribute to
their world
• Emphasis on social process
– how patterns of events unfold over time
– social worlds characterised by change and flux
 Preoccupations of qualitative
researchers (continued)
• Flexibility and limited structure
– no ‘prior contamination’ by rigid schedules
– sensitising concepts
• Concepts and theory grounded in the data
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 Definition of action research

• Experimentation on real problems within an

organisation designed to assist in their
solution
• Involving an iterative process of problem
identification, planning, action and
evaluation
• Leading eventually to re-education,
changing patterns of thinking and action.
• It is intended to contribute both to academic
theory and practical action
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 Features of participatory research

• Diverse parties are involved (management

and union leaders, for example)
• Involves researchers taking sides (not able
to keep a neutral stance)
• Diverse perspectives of different parties
must be integrated
• Concrete problems are solved as well as
the generation of abstract knowledge.
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 Feminist critique of quantitative
research
• It suppresses the voices of women
• Women are turned into research objects
• Controlling variables is viewed as a
masculine approach
• The use of predetermined categories in
quantitative research results in …`the
silencing of women's own voices’
• Women are researched in a value-neutral
way.
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 Feminist preference for qualitative
research
• Women's voices can be heard
• Exploitation is reduced by giving as well as
receiving in the course of fieldwork
• Women not treated as objects to be
controlled by the researcher's technical
procedures
• The emancipatory goals of feminism can
be realised.
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 Criticisms of quantitative research

• Failure to distinguish people and social

institutions from the natural world
• False sense of precision and accuracy
• Missing the connection between research
and everyday life – lack of ecological
validity
– reliance on instruments and measurements
• Static view of social life
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 Is it always like this?

• Quantitative research design is an

ideal-typical approach
• Useful as a guide of good practice
• But discrepancy between ideal type and
actual practice of business research
• Pragmatic concerns mean that researchers
may not adhere rigidly to these principles
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 Criticisms of qualitative research

• Too subjective
– researcher decides what to focus on
• Difficult to replicate
– unstructured format
• Problems of generalisation
– samples not ‘representative’ of all cases
• Lack of transparency
– often unclear what researcher actually did
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Contrasting qualitative and
quantitative research
 Similarities between quantitative
and qualitative research
• The concern with data reduction
• The concern with answering research
questions
• The concern with relating data analysis to
the research literature
• The concern with variation
• The significance of frequency as a
springboard for analysis
 Similarities between quantitative
and qualitative research (continued)
• The control of deliberate distortion
• The importance of transparency
• The question of error
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