Board Editorial

Journal of Research in Nursing

17(1) 9–11
Quantitative vs qualitative ! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1744987111432053
jrn.sagepub.com

Kenneth Walsh
Professor of Nursing Practice Development, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health,
University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia
Director, Nursing Development and Research Unit, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW,
Australia
Visiting Professor in the Department of Nursing and Applied Clinical Studies, Canterbury Christchurch
University, Kent, UK
Fellow of the Joanna Briggs Institute

Over recent years I have found myself in debates about students’ work that centred on
notions of rigor. This is not in itself remarkable and indeed discussions of rigor are very
appropriate. However, what has been surprising is that these discussions have often been
with academic colleagues who were judging the quality of the student’s work by criteria that
were inappropriate given the research question and the approach the student had taken.
Most recently there have been a couple of occasions when a student’s qualitative descriptive
research was judged by criteria most normally applied to statistical research. On both these
occasions the students’ work was being criticised for being non-generalisable and non-
representative and I found myself in the familiar territory of the Qualitative vs
Quantitative Debate or QQD as Krantz (1995) calls it.
Of course any research may seem ‘poor’ if judged by criteria that are inappropriate to the
approach. What could be said about quantitative research if we were to judge this broad
church by criteria associated with qualitative research? By qualitative research standards,
quantitative research could be seen as:

. . . less descriptively precise and attentive to context than qualitative research, as characterized
by non-purposeful or not informationally representative sampling, or as not allowing
idiographic generalizations (or as just allowing nomothetic generalizations). (Sandelowski, 2008)
However, as Sandelowski, points out, this comparison almost never happens as
quantitative research is the default research and invites only one-way comparisons. As a
‘qualitative researcher’, it would be easy to be filled with righteous indignation about the
positivist perspective once again dominating the received view of research rigor. It would
also be easy, by defending my position as a ‘qualitative researcher’, to also entrench it and
close my mind to alternative perspectives. In short, it would be easy to fall into, and
perpetuate, the dichotomy of qualitative vs. quantitative.

Corresponding author:
Prof Kenneth Walsh, Wollongong Hospital, Level 8 Block C, Crown St, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia
Email: kenw@uow.edu.au
10 Journal of Research in Nursing 17(1)

The qualitative vs. quantitative debate is a dichotomy but it is a false one. The terms
qualitative and quantitative assume that the various research approaches such as RCTs, case
studies, cohort studies, grounded theory, discourse analysis, feminist research,
phenomenology, ethnography, action research – the list goes on – somehow fit neatly in
one camp or the other. However, many ‘qualitative’ approaches use quantification and
‘quantitative’ studies make qualitative judgements (though often unacknowledged). The
implication of the bipolarity of the debate is that it risks stripping away the differences
and nuances associated with the various approaches by lumping them into one camp or
the other. And what of the underlying unspoken assumptions that often accompany such
descriptors as qualitative and quantitative: hard vs. soft, rigorous vs. less rigorous, difficult
vs. easy, and so on?
The qualitative/quantitative debate is unhelpful in another way. Once we find ourselves
thinking in dichotomies, this thinking easily throws up other polarities. The Glaserian vs.
Strassian debate in Grounded Theory and the Husserlian vs. Heideggerian debate in
Phenomenology are cases in point. Whilst these debates have been useful in exploring the
relative merits of the approaches and the methods used in various contexts, too often in my
experience, the debate has been more about ideology and who is ‘right’ and who is ‘wrong’,
based on a set of unquestioned beliefs and oversimplifications of the position of the ‘other’,
rather than reasoned argument. Partly this may be due to the culture and context in which
academic debate takes place and the pressures upon individual academics. As Hollway
states:

‘We end up using shorthand, we overgeneralize, we are pressed for space and time, we cut and
paste arguments from other writings. All this means that we are in danger of caricaturing . . . In
my view, there is a dominant style of intellectual critique that is part of a phallogocentric
tradition. It is not only aggressive and potentially detrimental to collegial relations, but it is
also damaging to the process of knowledge production over time. Caricaturing is part of splitting
positions and pitting them against each other . . . ’ (Hollway, 2008)

What is necessary in academic debate, she concludes, are ‘ . . . productive ways forward
that are not mired in critique and countercritique – in negativity’ (Hollway, 2008).
Indeed there is the danger that in defending our entrenched positions we will be blind not
only to other positions, but to the opportunity of developing new, hybrid and innovative
approaches to research. The reaction to Hollway’s and others’ attempts to introduce
Klienian psychoanalytically-informed approaches to psycho-social research is perhaps
evidence of this happening (see Hollway, 2008).
Research is about knowing, understanding and exploring the world in which we
find ourselves. There is no one privileged way of doing this. The approaches we
currently possess are but windows that frame our view of this world but also limit
what we can see. We should not think that our window is the only one, or indeed, our
view the best.
We need academic debate in order to be assured that our various approaches are applied
appropriately and are not (to extend the window metaphor) manufacturing illusions.
However, this debate will not be useful if it is characterised by a lack of understanding of
the epistemological and ontological underpinning of the various approaches.
This lack of understanding is perhaps the precursor of the caricatured, overly simplistic
false dichotomies that form the basis of the qualitative vs. quantitative debate that I still
encounter regularly in universities in this country and in others.
Walsh 11

Partly (and paradoxically) this may be being perpetuated by research quality assessment
exercises. Leaving aside the debates around notions of research quality, ‘gold standards’ and
research rankings, there is now such emphasis upon research outcomes and research
completions that the space to debate and explore is shrinking. Coupled with this (or
perhaps as a consequence if it) is an increasing reliance on method in the absence of an
understanding of methodology. This leads to its own set of problems not the least of which is
poorly conceived and executed research.
It has been my experience in several universities that we have to fight to maintain a space
for groups of students and supervisors to come together to explore the epistemological and
ontological views of the various methodologies and indeed the philosophy of science. These
discussions are important if we are to free ourselves from dichotomous thinking, develop
new and innovative research approaches and truly assure ourselves that the research we
undertake is indeed rigorous.

References
Hollway W (2008) Doing Intellectual Disagreement Sandelowski M (2008) Justifying Qualitative Research.
Differently. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 13: 385–396. Research in Nursing and Health 31: 193–195.
Krantz D (1995) Sustaining vs. Resolving the Quantitative-
Qualitative Debate. Evaluation and Program Planning 18(1):
89–96.