Quantitative and qualitative research: perceptual foundations

The way in which quantitative research and qualitative research are conventionally contrasted with each other runs along familiar lines – the former is seen as offering ‘hard’, ‘factual’ data, while the latter is depicted as softer, as providing deeper insight, but at the expense of being necessarily more ‘interpretivist’ and ‘subjective’ in its approach.

Quantitative and qualitative research: perceptual foundations

Chris Barnham

Chris Barnham Research and Strategy Ltd

Introduction

The distinctions between quantitative and qualitative market research are well rehearsed. The former measures phenomena such as brand awareness, brand penetration, product preferences, etc., and elicits numbers and percentages that, at least within the constraints of a given sample, have the status of ‘facts’. Qualitative market research, in contrast, is used when more ‘in depth’ understanding of consumer attitudes, behaviour and motivations is required.

The quantitative search for ‘facts’ can be usefully thought of as a series of ‘what?’ questions (e.g. whatnumber or...

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