Understanding Research Differences

While reading the article as well as in the book, I was drawn to the part that says qualitative research is more of an art rather than a science. It requires a great attention to detail to be able to do this type of research. I find this idea so interesting because it is an idea that was raised in another one of my economics classes. The way economics works is not tangible, people can have theories about it (as they do), but often the only thing that matters is the execution. The same is the case in qualitative research. The way you ask questions is often just as important as what questions you ask.

In my Intro to Mass Media class gave me the understanding that those that do quantitative research dislike those that do qualitative research and vice versa. Qualitative research failed to get the bigger picture by generalizing everything and quantitative research failed to make any concrete conclusions because it is too focused on feelings.

It surprised me to hear that the two research methods are used complimentarily. Quantitative data can give you key statistics, but the data cannot be fully understood without understanding what is truly going on (the idea of reducing human experience to nothing but a numerical value), hence the need for qualitative research.

I was going to post about some observations I was making in Second Life before this post, but I somehow managed to get my avatar stuck within a city wall. Out of frustration I quit and decided to do this first. Fortunately will writing this post, the solution came to me to get unstuck - teleport. Duh!

Those observations will be up shortly, I'm sure.