Qualitative > Quantative Research (PDF)

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Methods and Research Logic, grade: B, Ottawa University, course: Qualitative Research Methods, language: English, abstract: This report looks at research methods including the debate between qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, and relates these methodologies to the healthcare field in terms of providing cost effective solutions to healthcare problems like Medicare and other problems. The difference between qualitative and quantitative research approaches is also highlighted in the current report in the relationship between different paradigms of inquiry and definitions of paradigms. The features of logical positivism and phenomenology are therefore also used in approximate relativity to quantitative and qualitative methods, with the assumption being that qualitative methods are more reflective of the subjective approach of phenomenology. However, the report is also open to other definitions of paradigm and category in specific terms of healthcare research topics and new definitions of both types of research approach. "There is no universally accepted definition of qualitative research, because it is a field of enquiry rather than a single entity. Qualitative research is a broad term for a variety of research approaches... 'Qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting" (Coates, 2004).