How do you know if you're more quant or qual?

[hejduk]

Besides sucking at math (!), how you do you're more geared towards qual vs quant, or vice versa? My advertising background makes me feel pretty comfortable in qualitative, but how do I know for sure?

[bluetourmaline]

Why does it matter? If you aren't sure, that means you've been able to handle both without flunking too badly - so why do you ask?

I personally do not believe, beyond extreme cases, that people should be divided into quant people and qual people. Saying, "I'm just not a X person" seems an excuse not to develop skills that very well can be learned.

[hejduk]

Interesting... I've been told mixed methods is good and bad; depending on whom i'm talking to. I can only see strength in being mixed methods, while not believing the argument that mixed methods is "bastardizing" the purity of a single focus.

I'm definitely more qual... I'm more with qual methods and data collection, but I can't truly say that stats will never come in, so I'm all for both.

[harpyemma]

i'm confused. What on earth are you talking about?

[hejduk]

i'm confused. What on earth are you talking about?

What part? It's a qualitative vs. quantitative research query, and knowing how one discovers which they fit into.

[neuropsych76]

I still don't quite understand what you mean. Even if you do qualitative research, you still need a solid background in quantitative statistical analysis to conduct the results properly.

[juilletmercredi]

Even if you do qualitative research, you still need a solid background in quantitative statistical analysis to conduct the results properly.

Uh, this is not true at all. I'm a mixed methodologist myself and I know lots of anthro and soc friends who do ethnographies, interviews and participant observations using zero statistical methods. Why would you need to know statistical analysis to analyze an interview or a focus group or an ethnography? Unless you were planning to quantify the results somehow, which isn't always the best method and which mostly qual folks don't do.

I consider myself more of a quant person myself, but I sometimes do complement my quantitative survey methods studies with interviews.