Research Approach: Should I Choose Quantitative or Qualitative Research?

Reasearch Design Methods When we already have defined our research problems, the next question comes is how to answer those questions? In research, the way to answer research questions is by research design. But, what is research design? In short explanation research design is our blueprint to conduct research. It guides us on how the research should be conducted, i.e. how to collect the data, how many respondents we need, how to analyze the data gained, etc. In tailoring research design the first thing to do is deciding whether we will use Qualitative Research or Quantitative Research approach in our research project. Some researchers use both qualitative and quantitative research in their projects. Which approach will be used depends on our research objectives.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a research approach whose main purpose is to explore something or to gain new understanding about particular material. Qualitative research usually is formed in narrative paragraph rather than using numbers and statistical analysis. Sample used in qualitative research is less than in quantitative research. In quantitative research we may use hundreds of respondent, but in qualitative research we need only dozens. Data retrieval methods in qualitative research typically use focus groups, interviews, and/or other projective techniques. Qualitative research is widely used in marketing research and various social studies which investigates the unseen factors of human behavior, e.g. if you intend to do research to determine what factors are to be considered someone choosing a hospital then you should use a qualitative research rather than quantitative research. In that example you have no idea about factors motivating consumers to choose any specific hospital, so that you need to explore all possible factors, not counting the influence of these factors.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is the opposite of the qualitative research approach. In contrast to qualitative research whose main objective is to explore all possible factors (called variables), quantitative research are aimed to test the relationship among those variables, e.g. you want to calculate the increasing of your market share after the launch of a new promotion program. If we use quantitative research approach, we will use many statistical calculations in our research projects and also bigger number of respondents than in qualitative research.

Components in Research Approach

Components in research approach are things that underlying our research design. If research design specifies the details of procedures necessary for obtaining information needed, however, research approach is theoritical foundation underlying our research design.

In general, there are five components in developing research approach:

1. Theoritical framework

We remember that research should be based on objective evidence and supported by theory, i.e. a conceptual scheme based on foundational statements, or axioms, that are assumed to be true. This theory provides us information about what variables should be investigated and how those variables should be measured. In conducting research, theoritical framework helps us develop research questions and analitical model. If we want to investigate what factors motivate consumers’ intention to buy a cosmetic, we will need to check any theories related to consumer behavior from journal research and other references. For example, we found Theory of Planed of Behavior (TPB) that we assume could explain that phenomena. According to TPB there are three factors that influence someone intention to do or not to do something, which are: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

2. Analitical model

After we could find theory to explain our research probelm, we gain potential variables needed to investigate and their relationships. To simplify our research, we may transform those theoritical frameworks into an analitical model. Originally, there are three form of analitical models : verbal model, graphical model, and mathematical model. Verbal model is a written representative of the relationship between variablels. However, graphical model uses graphics or pictures to explain those variables. And, mathematical model requires us to write the relationship among varibles were figured out in an equation form. You can see the example of those three models as below (noted that we use the Theory of Planned Behavior from the explanation above) :

• Verbal model : There are three factors that affect consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics, which are attituse, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.


• Graphical model

• Mathematical model

I = A₀ + SN + PBC

which are:

I = consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics.

A₀ = consumers’ attitude toward cosmetics.

SN = subjective norm related to cosmetics.

PBC = consumers’ perceived behavioral control toward cosmetics.

3. Research questions

Research questions are any specific questions which we want to investigate through our research. From theoritical frame above, we develop three questions as below:

• Does attitude toward cosmetics affect consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics?


• Does consumers’ subjective norms affect consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics?


• Does perceived behavioral control really affect consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics?

Note that the questions above are aimed to examine the relationship between the variables examined, so that later we will use a quantitative analysis.

4. Research questions

From research questions and therotical framework above, we build several hypothesis. Hypothesis is a proposition about variable that a researcher interested in, or we can say that hypothesis is an allegations answer based on theory we have gained to answer our research questions. For instance, according to questions above we make three hypothesis:

H1 : Consumers’ attitude toward cosmetics positively affects consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics.

H2 : Positive subjective norms will motivate consumers intention to purchase cosmetics.

H3 : Consumers’ perceived behavioral control also positively affects consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics.

You can see the relationship between research questions and hypothesis as below:

5. Specification of Information Needed

It is any specific information required in our research. We collect this information by focusing on each component in our research questions. Let us consider on the previous case about consumers’ intention to purchase cosmetics. From the Attitude component we need to ask about how consumers think about particular cosmetics, how is their preference on consumers, their habit in consuming cosmetics, etc. From Subjective Norms component, we may need to ask about who is their reference in using cosmetics, who becomes the motivator to buy specific cosmetics, and how their reference group response to some cosmetics, etc. From Perceived Behavioral Control component we can ask about how is their perception in their ability to buy and to consume cosmetics, etc.

We already know two general research approaches. Remember that in choosing approach basically depends on the purpose of the study. If our goal is to explore a phenomenon would be better if we use qualitative research.

Six Steps to Write Research Paper

Reasearch Design Methods After discussing the benefits of research for academics and companies, this time we will discuss the six steps in conducting a research study. It will be helpful for you who got assignment about writing research essay or research paper. Some literature may have different versions of the number of stages in conducting research, but basically stages in research are the same for every approach, which includes the planning, implementation and prepare research report. The planning stage includes formulating research problem, selecting research approach, and develop research designs, where all three will be needed in composing research proposal. Implementation stage includes field data collection, data processing, and data analysis. In the last stage we will prepare a research report and present our research conclusion so that it will be helpful for others.

In this research course I am trying to give you a brief explanation about process in research, while the more detail explanation will be given in the next courses.

Generally, there are six steps in research which begin with define research problem and will be ended by reporting research conclusion. You can read the explanation below:

Step 1 : Formulate Research (Objective) Statement and Define Research Problem

The very first step in research is formulation your research objectives, which are what problems are trying to be solved by your research. This set of research problems then will be your guidance in determining what research design will be applied. Commonly, there are three option objectives conducting research: (1) to persuade the audiences, (2) to develop a new innovation, and (3) to understand and predict human behavior or a phenomena.

Mostly companies usually use research in order to help them provide such important information to make a decision, both in low level management and top level management. Since research plays crucial role in decision making process thus before we conduct research we need to discuss with the decision makers. By discussing with them we can find out what information actually we need or what problems are we facing now.

Tips :

In order to define a clear research problem, we could also make an evaluation toward our internal condition and compare it with competitors, update our insight about business environments, etc. We should remember that research is a way to add our competitive advantage, thus our research conclusion later should contain a solution to win competition.

Step 2 : Select Research Approach

After we could define our research problem, next step is choosing research approach that best suit. Research approach is derived from our research problems. Activities in this step include finding theoritical framework, formulating research model and hypothesis. Approach that will be used in your research depends on your research problems. In general, there are four types approach:

• Quantitative approach. This approach is commonly associated with positive paradigm which requires the researcher has one or some prior hypothesis. In this approach, data gained are turned to numbers so that we can make a statistic counting.


• Qualitative approach. This approach is widely used in any social construct researches. Basicaly, qualitative research is used to record, analyze, and to gain a deeper understanding about particular material such as consumer behavior. Some literature said that the conclusion of research using qualitative approach cannot be used for generalizing all people.


• Pragmatig approach. This approach also called with mixed method. It is an approach that mix both quantitative and qualitative approach to answer the research problems. For example, you want to know what cause people buy particular brand of a canned juice. At the first, you conducted an interview with some consumers and you figure out there are three factors that motivate them to buy that brand of canned juice. You then use a quantitative approach to test whether those factors really affect the consumers in choosing what brand of canned juice to be bought.


• Advocacy or Participatory approach. The main objective of this approach is to make positve changes in society or to persuade people to do something. When we are using this approach, we need active participation or contribution from our respondents. Usually the researchers also become a part of object being observed.

Tips :

To choose what approach that suit best with your research project, you can look at any previous research studies, e.g. research journal or research paper, related to your project now. Moreover, you can also discuss with the experts to get suggestion.

Step 3 : Formulate research design

Similar with two previous steps, formulating research design is also part of planning stage in research. Malhotra (2008) said that research design is a guideline in conducting research. In this step we build our hypothesis, then we choose which methodology in research will be applied, what data collection method will be used and which statistic analysis method will be appropriate for our research, and so on .

Tips:

If you have no idea which method of research should be applied for your research project, you can benchmark from the previous research studies. Please remember that benchmarking is different from copying the content of other people’s project.

Step 4 : Fieldwork

Fielwork is an activity to collect data from respondents. This step contains activities such as selecting our research area, training the fieldworkers, supervision, validating data, and evaluation. We must note that in conducting fieldwork, the surveyor or interviewer should be trained in collecting data from respondents. They have to be objective in doing their work. In this step we also need to evaluate all data gained to ensure that data is valid to be processed in the next step in research.

Tips:

Mostly error in research commonly happen in this fieldwork process. In order to minimize the number of human error in this process you are required to train your fieldworkers before they do their jobs.

Step 5 : Processing Data and Analyze

Million data you already gained from fieldwork still cannot give you any information you needed unless it processed. That data will be evaluated and maybe edited. Before we input it to our research software, we change the data with code that represents the each answer that our respondents gave. All data coded then will be processed by particular software. Remember to make the transcript from our research and save the data to a secure storage. The output data that has been processed then can be used to analyze the answer of your research problems.

Step 6 : Prepare Research Report

To make your research be helpful for other people, for you to pass your study or for your supervisor in making the best decision, therefore your research findings must be made in a report. Actually, your research paper format depends on your style or need, but a standard research paper contains: definition of research problems, research objectives, method of research be used, important findings, conclusion and suggestion. The most important in preparing report is the report should be made in an easy understood format.

Tips :

To make your report more attractive, you can present your findings in a graph or table and complete it with short explanation.