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Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Beyond the Debate

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An Erratum to this article was published on 16 September 2009

Abstract

Psychology has been a highly quantitative field since its conception as a science. However, a qualitative approach to psychological research has gained increasing importance in the last decades, and an enduring debate between quantitative and qualitative approaches has arisen. The recently developed Mixed Methods Research (MMR) addresses this debate by aiming to integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches. This article outlines and discusses quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research approaches with specific reference to their (1) philosophical foundations (i.e. basic sets of beliefs that ground inquiry), (2) methodological assumptions (i.e. principles and formal conditions which guide scientific investigation), and (3) research methods (i.e. concrete procedures for data collection, analysis and interpretation). We conclude that MMR may reasonably overcome the limitation of purely quantitative and purely qualitative approaches at each of these levels, providing a fruitful context for a more comprehensive psychological research.

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Notes

  1. Objectivism is often associated with quantitative research approaches and has been articulated at a meta-theoretical and philosophical level in logical positivism and critical rationalism. On the contrary, subjectivism and constructivism are typically associated with qualitative investigation, and have been expressed at a meta-theoretical and philosophical level, among others, in phenomenology, hermeneutics and symbolic interactionism.

  2. According to the degree of exerted experimental control, it is possible to distinguish between true-experiments and quasi-experiments (for a detailed description see Polgar and Thomas 2000).

  3. Non-experimental designs include correlational designs, correlational–comparative designs, correlational–causal–comparative designs, and ex-post-facto designs.

  4. Case study designs may also be appropriate to the quantitative approach. In this case it is usual to talk about single-case research designs (see Hilliard 1993 and Kazdin 1982).

  5. The term focus group may also refer to a specific form of data collection (see next paragraph).

  6. For a detailed description of different typologies of validity as well as of validity threats and strategies for addressing these threats see Campbell and Stanley 1963 and Cook and Campbell 1979.

  7. Generalizability has also been referred to as transferability (Guba and Lincoln 1989).

  8. Whereby the visual data is usually video-recorded in order to allow the subsequent analysis according to the specific observational protocol used.

  9. See e.g. the Analysis and Treatment of Finger Sucking (Ellingson et al. 2000), which allows investigating the reinforcements useful in maintaining finger sucking, or the Strange Situation Protocol (Ainsworth et al. 1978) for the assessment of attachment in infants (12–20 months).

  10. Some forms of open-ended interview (i.e. the interview guide approach and the standardized open-ended interview) correspond to some extent to what is generally known as semi-structured interview.

  11. The roles of an observer may vary on a continuum: complete participant, to the participant-as-observer, observer-as-participant, and complete observer (Johnson and Turner 2003).

  12. This is the case of mixed methods designs, which are described in the present paper. In mixed model designs (for on overview see Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003a), by contrast, interpretation takes place after the application of each quantitative and qualitative strand of the design. The researcher has then to go through a process of meta-interpretation. The inferences developed for each strand of the design are then integrated. This process is called meta-inference (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003a).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychotherapeutic Sciences, Sigmund Freud University—Vienna, Schnirchgasse 9a, 1030, Vienna, Austria

    Omar Gelo & Diana Braakmann

  2. Department of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University—Vienna, Schnirchgasse 9a, 1030, Vienna, Austria

    Gerhard Benetka

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  1. Omar Gelo
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  2. Diana Braakmann
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  3. Gerhard Benetka
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Correspondence to Omar Gelo.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12124-009-9107-x

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Gelo, O., Braakmann, D. & Benetka, G. Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Beyond the Debate. Integr. psych. behav. 42, 266–290 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9078-3

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