Understanding Business Research Terms and Concepts
RES 351

Summary

The purpose of the two articles is to help get a better understanding of qualitative and quantitative research. The first article, “Would students prefer to eat healthier foods at school?” Takes a quantitative method to conduct research. A survey was given to see how kids would react to healthy options while at school. The results of the study stated that, “sixty-nine percent reported that fresh fruit was important to be able to buy at school; candy came in at twenty- one percent, candy and soda at twenty- eight and thirty- one percent.” (Gosliner, W., Madsen, K. A., Woodward-Lopez, G., & Crawford, P. B., 2011, pg. 3). The second article, “Swedes study single-parent homes; children in one-parent homes twice as likely to have emotional problems.” A qualitative research method was used because it wanted to measure the behavior of children coming from a single parent home. It states, “2.5 per cent of girls and 1.5 per cent of boys in single-parent families were hospitalized with problems ranging from severe depression to paranoid schizophrenia.” (Ross, E., 2003, pg. 1) Although both methods take a different approach in research each one start with either a problem or question that needs to be answered.
Identified the strengths and weaknesses

Qualitative and quantitative methods are good ways of doing research, and each method carries its own strengths and weaknesses. Qualitative Strengths- It digs deep and can help get an in depth record of attitudes and behaviors. Its candid participants are able to open up during the examination. Lastly it can help draw out the experience of individuals. Weaknesses- Focus groups are typically smaller because it takes longer to gather the data. It can be difficult to generalize the evidence because less people are being studied. Quantitative Strengths- can be a bigger compared to qualitative, typically it has a larger amount of topics as well. Quantitative research can be used to compare different areas over a period of time. Weaknesses- Even though study areas can be larger, results can be limited because they are numbered based and not detailed. Researchers can development questions that are bias or false presentation of people, locations or items.
Combining Qualitative vs quantitative methods effective use

Combining both methods of qualitative and quantitative research can help improve the over results of the data be conducted. If they are properly combined, one method will complement the other in the research, meaning it will help give a more in depth result with the combination of both words and numbers. Also if you decide to use both methods it can help increase the validity of the research by having different data sources. For example, in the article “Would Students Prefer to Eat Healthier Foods