Get Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research

Data from quantitative research such as market size, demographics, and user preferences provides important information for business decisions. Qualitative research provides valuable data for use in the design of a product including data about user needs, behavior patterns, and use cases.

Quantitative data can help you see the big picture. ... Finding general answers: Quantitative research usually has more respondents than qualitative research because it is easier to conduct a multiple-choice survey than a series of interviews or focus groups.

Simply put, quantitative data gets you the numbers to prove the broad general points of your research. Qualitative data brings you the details and the depth to understand their full implications. To get the best results from these methods in your surveys, it's important that you understand the differences between them.

Qualitative research allows one to explore topics in more depth and detail than quantitative research. Also, qualitative research is often less expensive than quantitative research, because you don't need to recruit as many participants or use extensive methods.

What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative data? Quantitative data can be counted, measured, and expressed using numbers. Qualitative data is descriptive and conceptual. Qualitative data can be categorized based on traits and characteristics.

Here are some of the main benefits: Qualitative techniques give you a unique depth of understanding which is difficult to gain from a closed question survey. Respondents are able to freely disclose their experiences, thoughts and feelings without constraint.

Quantitative research is more preferred over qualitative research because it is more scientific, objective, fast, focused and acceptable. However, qualitative research is used when the researcher has no idea what to expect. It is used to define the problem or develop and approach to the problem.