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Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES
TO SOCIAL RESEARCH
Christina Hughes
C.L.Hughes@warwick.ac.uk
There has been widespread debate in recent years within many of the social sciences regarding the relative merits of quantitative and qualitative strategies for research. The positions taken by individual researchers vary considerably, from those who see the two strategies as entirely separate and based on alternative views of the world, to those who are happy to mix these strategies within their research projects. For example, Bryman (1988) argued for a `best of both worlds' approach and suggested that qualitative and quantitative approaches should be combined. Hughes (1997), nevertheless, warns that such technicist solutions underestimate the politics of legitimacy that are associated with choice of methods. In particular, quantitative approaches have been seen as more scientific and `objective'.
In exploring issues of qualitative and quantitative research, this material builds directly on the epistemological foundations presented in the package `What is Research?' For example, in exploring the distinctions between qualitative and quantitative forms of research we need to consider the different ontological and epistemological questions we considered when discussing positivism, interpretivism and critical paradigms. Thus,...