“Qualitative versus

Quantitative Research
Methods: Discovery or
Justification?”

Zennefer Galaura
May Artemisia Sumangil
Gliezel Buenavista
Reshelle Cadano
Carl John Pocot
Summary
 Findings and Conclusion

Both types of researchers are selective of their facts and ultimately engage in acts of
construction. Both begin with a concrete world and step into another world of abstraction. The
same criterion of value can be applied to both kinds of construction (Wallner 1994). If we
consider the real social phenomenon in one view and interpose our theoretical accounts with
another view, as lenses focused on the phenomenon, is it brought more clearly into view? If our
abstract concepts do not account for patterns in the real world, then our theories lack value, no
matter how they are derived. However, if the in-depth examination of a phenomenon helps
clarify and describe patterns that lie within it, then the qualitative and quantitative approaches
will have served their purpose; richness and precision will have complemented each other.

Fundamental goal of social research should be to reveal (discover and justify) the
processes that underlie observed social phenomena. Social phenomena are multilayered events,
as is the inquiring mind of the social scientist. The qualitative method should not be seen as
providing access to the "meaning" of individual events, texts, and so on. Rather, understood
within the tradition of observation in natural history, the qualitative method provides a basis for a
"thick" description of discovery. To the extent that the interviewer and the respondent share an
ongoing reference point, it makes it easier to locate the respondent's concrete discourse in a
meaningful abstract theoretical context of interest to the interviewer. The quantitative method
can yield insights to the extent that evocative stimuli designs are presented to relevant groups,
and the resulting statistical interactions help explain the underlying processes. Statistically
significant effects can draw our attention to socially meaningful events that are then re-examined
in descriptive depth and become foundations for justification. This interplay between descriptive
richness and experimental precision can increase the understanding of social phenomena.
Together, qualitative and quantitative methods provide complementary views of the phenomena,
and efforts at achieving their reconciliation can elucidate their underlying processes.
Recommendation
Opinion
 Citation
Jeongeun Park and Minhye Park (2016) ‘Qualitative versus Quantitative Research
Methods: Discovery or Justification?’, Journal of Marketing Thought, 3(1): 1-7
Wallner, Fritz (1994), “Constructive realism: Aspects of a new epistemological
movement,” Philosophica, 11