STAT 1000Q Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: United States Census Bureau, Health Professional, Health Equity
15 Dec 2018
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QUALITATIVE vs. QUANTITAIVE RESEARCH
❖ Develops explanations of social phenomena
❖ Focuses on subject’s behavior in their environment/ natural settings and with others
➢ Subjects’ experiences, thoughts, understandings, interpretations given in their own words
❖ Used to generate a theory
➢ In comparison to Quantitative (which would be based on a theory and testing a theory)
❖ Link subjectivity to variability of interpretations
❖ Objective: facts, not influenced by opinions
❖ Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, opinions
Types of Qualitative Research
❖ Naturalistic Observation:
➢ Researcher makes observations of individuals in their natural environments (ex.
Anthropologists)
➢ Description & Interpretation of Data:
▪ Provide a complete and accurate picture of what occurred in the setting rather than testing
a hypothesis
▪ Describe & Analyze
▪ Descriptions closely resemble what is being studied, more so than statistical analysis
▪ Useful to gather quantitative data simultaneously (income, family size, education level, age,
etc.)
➢ Participation & Concealment:
▪ Observer (researcher): Participant or non-participant, disclosure or concealment
▪ Pros/cons?
❖ Systematic Observation:
➢ Observation of one or more specific behaviors in a particular setting
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Document Summary
Focuses on subject"s behavior in their environment/ natural settings and with others. Subjects" experiences, thoughts, understandings, interpretations given in their own words. In comparison to quantitative (which would be based on a theory and testing a theory) Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, opinions. Researcher makes observations of individuals in their natural environments (ex. Observation of one or more specific behaviors in a particular setting. Unique to systematic observations: can be quantifiable, hypothesis typically developed prior to observation (this is not typically done in qualitative research: coding system: categorizing behavior and rating frequency of behaviors. Provides a description of an individual or a setting: description of a patient, psychobiography: use of psychological theory to explain the life of an individual, not always performed in person, could be a historical analysis. May provide description of rare or unusual/ unique situations.
