i totally agree with u. literature guides you in a particular fashion, it helps you consider the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions but when you should do lit review depends on the phenomenon u study. for example if you are studying a contemporary phenomenon or anything not studied earlier it is better to do lit review after you do your interviews and survey. grounded theory method suggests that lit review should be done after data collection.

Could you give a concrete example of a qualitative analysis in social sciences as a base for discussion?

I hope people are clearly making the distinction between the two. Whichever method is used rigor will have to be there. I am not sure how you can say there is less rigor in quantitative research. If any research that do not have the rigor it should be rejected whether it is qualitative or quantitative.

I see a mixed method is being used in Geo sciences presently. However, @Dr. Rao has a valid argument to be supported.

I find it essential to endorse question raised by @Marcel M. Lambrechts

Could you give a concrete example of a qualitative analysis in social sciences as a base for discussion?

Dear Nageswar, You are absolutely right. Perhaps, i did not say what I wanted to in appropriate words. What I wanted to say that these days a large number of so-called scholars use some quantitative technique to argue that there is a relationship between two or more variables, without going into all the collateral aspects of the occurrence of a phenomenon e.g. in what power context, social framework, background, which sector, which local conditions, in cultural context, which geographical factors, for example, etc., the relationship exists. Nor is the literature review they do sufficiently articulate. Few days ago, I received from a foreign university 12 papers of an associate professor to be reviewed to certify whether he should be promoted to a professor's position. All these papers suffer from the problem I am raising. They just survive on the belief of the author that he has hypotheses, and has analyzed the data to draw conclusions. The analysis is very poor, and so is the literature review.

No doubt many papers in social science with quantitative data support can be as or even more rigorous compared to just qualitative data analysis. I did not mean otherwise. Just wanted to comment upon some scholars using the quantitative under the mistaken belief.

Dear Marcel

In some cases, of course not all, qualitative data may provide better results for various reasons. For example, we are studying the state of industrial relations in a country. we have the government statistics which is about man days lost data through strikes and lockouts. Supposing, it shows that the same are on decline. Many scholars compare this data and conclude the better IR dynamics.

But a more holistic explanation would necessitate a kind of a social anthropological approach, where union leaders and workers are approached to understand for intensive interviews about the dynamics of industrial peace? Is the peace repressive because there is a power shift against the working class and in favour of the employers due to the government having shaken hands with them and not enforcing the law against the unfair labour practices committed by the employers.

This is precisely the situation in many developing countries today. In such cases statistics conceals more than what it reveals. The qualitative data here would involve detained anecdotal study of reconstructing various disputes situations to know how power was exercised by different actors and to whose advantage. That would lead to different results.

Dear Debi,

Perhaps you need (anonymous) field observers to retrieve patterns of social interactions and consequences as is done in ecological population studies involving non-human living beings.

Quantitative techniques with detailed statistical data often comes in handy when the sample size of the qualitative analysis may not be sufficiently representative of the studied groups. Of course, this is a very generic rendition that gains meaning in context. Qualitative research provides a more solid framework in terms of context and does a better job of exploring, investigating, and hypothesizing underlying factors and reasons. Quantitative research without the qualitative analysis may be able to provide concrete numbers but in decontextualizing the issue or behavior, it isn't able to study the totality of the matter and the many variables (sociological, psychological, historical, cultural etc) that contribute to it. Thus a blended approach is more ideal, and any comprehensive piece of research would usually furnish the implicit (and of course, explicit) reasons behind the numbers.

Dear @Debi, I did some reading on this issue: "What Are Standards Of Rigor For Qualitative Research? ". Special attention was given to social science research. It is fine for someone to understand the difference between these two approaches.

As an engineer, I find both approaches RIGOR and applicable!

I do not agree that it is a decision you take. It is often the type of question asked that determines whether one should adopt a qualitative or quantitative research strategy.

Both qualitative and quantitative research require scientific rigour whose rules are more of a convention than a universal truth.

Dear Debi

When a quantitative analysis is done, it is necessary to identify the variables, limitations and delimitation very clearly. If the researcher is not making that information clear, it is difficult to accept that research.

Dear Nageswar: Monica has made my job easier a bit. Thanks Monica. I totally agree with you. Also, Nages, we are talking about most social sciences. Social anthropologists do almost all their research qualitatively. The idea is not to denounce one and promote the other. Just that in some contexts, you do not see the holistic picture without studying the nuances of the contextual realities. Dear, Kamal has said it rightly; often, one needs to do both. but i wish to say that factor analysis by itself does not clearly bring in the context of the research. Some of the finest researches in my area are just one case study carried on for several years, and will international acclaim; those issues were perhaps not possible through quantitative approach alone. Mohamed has put it quite correctly. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches need rigour, otherwise it is not acceptable. You are so very right on that, Nagesh.

Dear Prof.Debi,

I've teach communication science and management, based on my experience they use qualitative but had handy tool in sharpening and proof their hipotesis and analysis by using quantitative.

As i always emphasize on statistic class, quantification is a tool but you need to deepen analysis by its reality context on qualitatif approach.

Both are needed as quantitative sharpen qualitative as qualitative explain more contextual content on quantitative result.

Not necessarily. Of course, qualitative approach provides an indepth view, but very often it becomes necessary to find out truth of qualitative finding employing empirical methods. It is why, several scholars recommend and prefer mixed method.

While I agree with most of the answers above, that social science research must focus on both quantitative and well qualitative techniques, I feel that more emphasis in past have been given to quantitative techniques.

As a researcher, it should be his prerogative to decide upon the type of techniques to be used, but often qualitative techniques are not relied upon emphatically compared to quantitative ones. Many feel that if a finding can not be verified quantitatively, it may or may not hold true. I think that this view must change and sound qualitative techniques must be developed to counter this bias.

Dear Debi, I agree with Kamal, and think, there are needed both complementary options in the fields.

Although, as a researcher, I prefer to conduct qualitative research, I believe that in my discipline - special pedagogics (education) are needed many ways of conducting research in different paradigms (positivist, interpretivist- constructivist)

However, I'm skeptical about the mixed methods, because I believe that the researchers have a "map of paradigm:" in their brains and always some sort of option prevails, in the formulation of a research project with deductive or inductive assumptions in general.

The same time I'm an advocate of research in one area, in different paradigms and theoretical grounds, by different researchers, which will enhance the credibility of results.

Yesterday I read somewhere that a scientific result/conclusion is more convincing when more than one team, each team working independently from one another, will produce the same result/conclusion... If two teams that work on the same topic/problem do not produce the same results/conclusions, this might be due to between-team differences in the characteristics of the study populations or study environments, or due to between-team differences in the scientific methods used. I think this applies both for qualitative and quantitative approaches.

What I personally feel (from my experience of scrutinising the articles in Soc. Sc. area, as an editor), there is some bias towards (jumping to use) quantitative research heavily in Social Sciences (at least by a few). Though I'm a student of Statistics, I strongly feel that, there is enough reason to give more emphasis on qualitative research. Of course, that depends on the research-need. Colleagues have already favoured (as mentioned above) for mixed-research (both qualitative & quantitative). I agree with Prof. Debi, particularly on 'justifying the need for quantitative research (and hypothesis testing). One should see, how scientifically (methodology) it has been done.

Regards

when it come to measurement of the Social Science Researches, it is more of Qualitative and descriptive as many of the parameters are so fine and nimble to be quantified.... What can be measured, can only be controlled... However a customized scale of Quantification over a Qualitative aspects merged with LIKERT or any other self made calibrations can also be a eye-opener to measurement... Of course the outcome may have errors... which can be eventually fine tuned over a longer period of review and re analysis...

For me, the most appropriate method depends on the question asked: there are some questions that quantitative methods cannot answer and vice versa. So, rather than promote one approach over the other and make a false dichotomy I'd encourage researchers to rigorously challenge the question(s) they are asking and then the method that they use.

Incidentally, some of the most powerful research I have read in recent years uses a mixed methods approach using rigorous quantitative and qualitative techniques (usually in that order) to explore questions in better detail.

All

Here you go

it will clear the concept

Its like Sugar, Salt and Fat all are required at the required dosage for a healthy living. Hence social science research should cover qualitative, qualitative and contextual rigor at that cherishable existence so that the research report reaches more than the targeted population or for the intend alone... Because, Research Knowledge is a source for enlightenment of Humankind.

It depends on the discipline. In some disciplines qualitative is the norm while in others quantitative is in fashion. For example in political science, it is quantitative research that is in fashion and has more avenues of publication that qualitative research