Qualitative Research — Understanding the Why
The productive tension
Qualitative depthandquantitative scale
The synthesis
The qual-quant war is one of marketing's most persistent false dichotomies. Qual purists argue that numbers without understanding are meaningless -- you cannot reduce human motivation to a Likert scale. Quant purists argue that stories without numbers are anecdotes -- you cannot generalise from twelve people in a room. Both are right about the other's limitations and wrong about their own sufficiency. The researcher understands that qualitative and quantitative research are sequential, complementary, and mutually dependent. You need to understand before you can measure. Qual tells you WHY. Quant tells you HOW MANY. You need both, in that order. The error is using one as a substitute for the other.
Learning objectives
- →Explain the epistemological logic of qualitative research and distinguish it from quantitative logic
- →Evaluate the strengths and limitations of focus groups, depth interviews, and ethnographic methods for different research objectives
- →Identify common qualitative research mistakes including small-sample generalisation, confirmation bias, and the articulation gap
- →Describe the role of netnography and social listening as contemporary qualitative methods
- →Articulate why qualitative research should precede quantitative research in the research sequence and why it cannot replace it
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