In order to support or discard a hypothesis, research needs to be collected. When gathering research, a researcher can either use qualitative or quantitative research methods. Both of these research methods follow the scientific method. Qualitative and quantitative research starts with the researcher identifying a topic of interest. Identifying a topic, begins with a problem or question that someone wants to find the answer to.
The topic can come from a personal experience driving the importance of the topic to be investigate but it should not limit the topic. After identifying a topic, the researcher for both qualitative and quantitative methods do background research. First, the researcher needs to determine which research method is most appropriate to use. After deciding which direction the researcher is going to take, the researcher needs to understand the topic. In order to become familiar with research on that particular topic that has already been done, the researcher will read previous studies and complete a literature review. This process is very time consuming but allows the researcher to gain an understanding of the subject that they are going to continue to research.
After understanding the previous research, the researcher will create a plan of investigation. For both research methods, the researcher will create a research question and construct a hypothesis. The research question is what the researcher is wondering and wants to find the answers to. After the research question is created with measurable variables, a hypothesis can be formed. This hypothesis is a statement about the expected outcomes of the research. Normally, the hypothesis is created based on the literature review and shows what the researche.
.y testing the hypothesis and reporting the statistics, the shared results may be confusing for other people to understand which may compromise how the data is handled after the study. Even with the confusion of trying to understand statistics, the results are still reliable. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are great and can be used depending on a researchers intentions, but I find quantitative research to be more valid. Quantitative research is more valid because the results are reliable due to statistics that support the results. The results are also reliable because there is little room for the researcher’s objective bias.
By testing and proving theories, the statistics can generalize findings and establish cause and effect relationships. With broad findings, researchers can then go and use qualitative methods to support quantitative results.
