Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods (by Neil Salkind): Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)

The Research Process
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The Research Process
Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
Qualitative research methods include interviews, focus groups, reviews, and observations. Interviews may either allow a subject to narrate their experience or be a series of structured questions. Reviews involve combing through published writing such as scholarly articles to determine attitudes towards a certain subject. Focus groups involve seeking observations from a group of people that share certain attributes (for example a group of men under 35) to share their opinion on a topic. On the other hand, observations involve researchers watching people on a daily basis and making notes on their behavior. Quantitative research methods put emphasis on objective measurements, and the mathematical, numerical and statistical analysis of data collected through surveys, questionnaires, or polls. It may also involve manipulation of pre-existing statistical data with the use of computational software such as Microsoft Excel or Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
Qualitative research methods are inductive processes used to formulate hypotheses and theory whereas quantitative methods are deductive in nature and are used to test constructs, pre-specified concepts, and hypotheses that form a theory. Qualitative methods are text-based and provide more in-depth information about few cases while quantitative methods are number-based and provide less in-depth but the greater breadth of information across many cases. Qualitative methods have semi-structured or unstructured re...