Research Methods Comparison Chart
Appropriate Studies for Each Research Method
Most researchers find the qualitative research methods desirable for use in studies that are detailed and factual. For instance, Qualitative research is appropriate, applicable during new product development and product idea generation. Further, researchers can apply qualitative research methods while conducting community-based studies, such as cultural attitudes and beliefs (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). Researchers can use case study methods to understand social sciences and education. Other appropriate areas for qualitative research include record keeping of either business or hospitals and while observing production or manufacturing processes in factories or clinical laboratories.
Quantitative research involves numerical data collection and analysis. There are four designs that any quantitative research can adopt. These include descriptive research, correlational research, causal-comparative research, and experimental research. Descriptive research describes the status of a certain variable on a current basis to provide systematic details about a given situation. Descriptive research is useful for use in describing situations such as the prevalence of tobacco use among youths and how students spend time during holidays. Correlational research uses statistical data to establish how two or more variables. Researchers can use this approach to study the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance. (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). Causal comparative effective in studying the effect of drug and substance abuse on students’ academic performance. Lastly, experimental research can be used to establish the effect of new Covid-19 vaccines on patients.
The outcome research method involves measuring the effects of outcomes of a certain health practice intervention or treatment on a patient in a clinical setting (Gaglio et al., 2020). The approaches adopted by researchers in outcome research include diagnosis, outcome identification, intervention, and evaluation. Organizational researchers interested in evaluating the population of patients to get appropriate health data can use outcome methods of research. Other studies where outcome research is proper to include government economic planning, health insurance studies, and pharmaceutical studies.
Definition of Rigor by Each Research Method
The concept of rigor depicts the quality of a research process, qualitative, quantitative, or outcome research. However, the definition of rigor differs depending on the type of research method. In qualitative research, rigor entails credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Creswell, & Creswell, 2017). Credibility in qualitative research refers to a clear interpretation of the experiences of research participants to make it easy for the audience to recognize those experiences. Transferability occurs when a researcher is able to shift their findings and methods from one research group to another. Researchers do this by providing a detailed description of the study population by considering their geographic and demographic study boundaries. Research becomes dependable if other researchers can use it to develop their researches.
Lastly, qualitative research becomes confirmable after fulfilling the credibility, and transferability, and dependability requirements. Confirmability occurs when research maintains the aspect of openness and awareness to study and outcomes. On the other hand, quantitative research considers rigor as the precision of research planning, collection, and analysis of data and reporting of findings. Consequently, rigor in outcome research comprises three parts which include, study population, design, and data sampling. Population refers to people targeted by the research, their exposure to a certain health condition, and the results. The design used must be relevant and suitable to the specific research question. Outcome researchers classify data study populations into cohort groups.
Approaches Used by Each Research Method
Researchers’ main approaches in qualitative research include narrative, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, case study, action-oriented, and community engagement research. The narrative approach occurs when a researcher analyses data from the personal stories of individuals. Phenomenology involves analyzing people’s historical experiences from textual or participants (Creswell & Creswell, 2017).
The grounded theory focuses on people’s experiences and reactions to explain or illustrate how a process works. Ethnography approach concerns analysis of people’s cultural norms. A case study concentrates on understanding the activities of an individual, organization, or group of people. In addition, action research entails studies conducted by researchers in the course of their education to develop new or improved methods or approaches to solve a certain problem. Lastly, community-engaged research occurs when a researcher collaborates with people who have specific affiliations or special interests in research.
Depending on the research, researchers can approach quantitative research in four-way. These include a descriptive approach, correlational, causal-comparative, or experimental approaches. In descriptive research, the research formulates a hypothesis after data collection, which they test by analyzing and synthesizing their research data. The researcher uses patterns and trends to find the relationship between variables but does not prove the cause for this relationship to exist. In causal-comparative research, the researcher attempts to find the relationship between variables using the cause and effect method. The experimental approach involves the use of scientific methods to find the cause and effect of relationships among several variables.
Experimental researchers can exercise control over dependent variables but not the independent variables. Quantitative research has a common design that starts with the identification of a research problem, which forms the main subject of the study. Then, the researchers develop a hypothesis, which may be positive or negative (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). In addition, researchers make predictions of the outcomes related to their hypotheses. Further, researchers collect numerical data using various data collection methods, such as structured questionnaires, interviews, probability sampling, among others. Moreover, researchers conduct a deductive analysis to prove the validity of their hypotheses. Finally, researchers verify their findings to make conclusions before presenting their research to the audience.
Outcome research uses several approaches which include, assessment, diagnosis, and identification of outcome, intervention, and evaluation, to verify and present their conclusions. During the assessment, the researcher gathers data for the determination of the health status of patients and factors affecting a patient’s health. In the diagnosis approach, the researcher uses the patient’s data to identify their health problem. The outcome planning approach entails the researcher considering various interventions to solve a patient’s health problem. During intervention refers to a practical approach by a physician to alleviate the health condition of a patient (Gaglio et al., 2020). The last approach involves evaluation, where the researcher examines whether the actual outcomes match with outcomes in their medical plans.
Data Collection Methods and Analysis for Each Method
Researchers can collect data through active participation in the research field in qualitative research methods, asking open-ended questions to participants using questionnaires or conducting direct interviews. In addition, a researcher can collect data through observations of events of the study groups (Creswell, & Creswell, 2017). To analyze research data qualitatively, researchers adopt an inductive analysis of the data they collected from small groups, which must not be representative.
The methods used for data collection include experiments, observations, surveys, telephone, and face-to-face interviews. Quantitative data can be analyzed in two ways descriptive and inferential (Creswell, & Creswell, 2017). Descriptive data helps one conclude from the whole data, while inferential shows the difference between two or more data groups. Inferential data has two kinds comparative and relationship data. Researchers use surveys, hospital and ambulatory report reviews, informant reports, biological specimens from patients, patient interviews, focus groups, and observation (Gaglio et al., 2020). To conclude, researchers use cohort analysis, clinical trial analysis, or decision analysis.
References
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach. Sage publications.
Gaglio, B., Henton, M., Barbeau, A., Evans, E., Hickam, D., Newhouse, R., & Zickmund, S. (2020). Methodological standards for qualitative and mixed methods patient-centred outcomes research. BMJ, m4435. Web.