I am undertaking a quantitative study using a questionnaire. At the end of the questionnaire there is a lined, blank page asking participants to write 'any other / further comments'. Are participants responses in this section considered qualitative or quantitative data? If they are qualitative, would this study then be regarded as a mixed-methods study, rather than quantitative? I would be interested in reading any articles that have used 'any further comments' as a qualitative component of a mixed - methods study.
The qual/quan bifurcation is fallacious; You can conduct qual or quant analyses on open responses, just as you can do both on closed (typically, viewed 'quant') data.
(Thus, most open-response is classically viewed 'qual'.)
Hope this helps,
Matt
The qual/quan bifurcation is fallacious; You can conduct qual or quant analyses on open responses, just as you can do both on closed (typically, viewed 'quant') data.
(Thus, most open-response is classically viewed 'qual'.)
Hope this helps,
Matt
Lloyd - an open response at the end of your questionnaire is neither quantitative (it would need to be a close question i.e. yes/no/don't know) - nor qualitative. It does not constitute mixed nor multi-method either. The open response is just supplementary information that may inform your discussion i.e. it was interesting to note that several respondents said .... and this supported/contradicted the collected quantitative survey material. It may, at the same time, not inform anything. There is the potential, as well, for all participants to leave it blank.
Thank you Dean.
There are papers where the data from the 'any/other further comments' section has been published as a separate paper from the findings from the main questionnaire. Is there any merit in publishing the two section separately?
I agree with Matthew. This time I don't wholly agree with Dean Whitehead . He is right when he says that an open final question could also be left blank. And usually "The open answer is only additional information that can inform your discussion". I typically use it as indicated by Dean. However recently in a survey with 1100 respondents, more than 265 of these used the open question not so much to provide clarifications to their answers (as I imagined it to be used) but to tell their experiences and perceptions of the phenomenon being investigated (Workplace Violence towards Emergency Nurses). It turned out to be an excellent source of information and data that I analysed with a qualitative method (In this case, I used the van Kaan's method).
Dear Lloyd Frank Philpott Why not? If the data collected is rich and exciting to explore in a qualitative vision, then a dedicated publication is welcome. On the contrary, I am currently publishing a study based on quantitative analysis, in which the information provided to me by the final open question allowed me to discuss some aspects that quantitative data would not have allowed me to explore.
Thank you Nicola. What is you opinion in relation to a study that has the findings from the questionnaire reported separately from the 'any further comments' section? If the 'any further comments' section is analysed with a qualitative method, would you then regard this as a mixed-methods study, rather than a quantitative study?
A qualitative study.
as an example:
Ramacciati N, Ceccagnoli A, Addey B, Rasero L. Violence towards Emergency Nurses. The Italian National Survey 2016: A qualitative study. Int J Nurs Stud. 2018;81:21-29. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.01.017.
It depends on the nature and amount of data. If one merely include a question "Any further comments" that doesn't constitute as qualitative data and hence the study cannot be labelled as mixed methods.
However, if one includes various questions addressing the studied phenomenon at the end of a questionnaire or scale, then Creswell & Plano-Clark (2018) calls this a variant of convergent mixed method design. They explicitly state that one of the variant of convergent mixed methods design is questionnaire variant which involves using a questionnaire with both open and closed ended questions, but does not include actual qualitative data collection using interviews, focus groups and so forth.
Whether it will be a quantitative or a qualitative study (or a mixed methods one) will depend on whether you will indeed get any responces to your question and on what method you will use to analyse the potential responses. You could for example use a mixed methods content analysis
First, there, is nothing to measure in that kind of data, so you can't consider it quantitative. Second, even if it is qualitative data, the key issue is whether it is high enough quality to analyze. The problem here is that such a broad question does not target any particular topic or substantive area, so it is not likely to produce coherent overall content.
Nicola Ramacciati did provide a nice example of where such a question did provide him with a set of statements that were productive for his research, but I suspect this is a rather unusual exception.
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