Quantitative vs. qualitative research – which one requires more effort?

When embarking on your dissertation journey, one of the fundamental decisions you face is choosing between a quantitative and qualitative approach. It is not uncommon for students to underpin their decision on how ‘easy’ or ‘quick’ they believe one approach will be over the other; “I’ll do quantitative because it's easier” is a common expression I hear. In such context, I always explain that this is a misguided stance, because both methods require the same amount of effort. The difference is that the distribution of this effort varies, making each approach unique in its demands and workflow.

Quantitative research: Front-loaded Effort

Quantitative research is often characterised by its structured and systematic nature. This approach involves collecting numerical data through surveys, questionnaires, or experiments, and then analysing this data using statistical methods. The effort in quantitative research is predominantly front-loaded, meaning that a substantial amount of work is required at the beginning of the research process. This front-loaded effort :

📊 Reviewing the literature: A thorough review of the literature must be carried out before data collection commences, in order to identify fairly specific gaps that their research can address. In addition, a thorough literature review helps in understanding the existing theories and findings, which in turn aids in formulating precise hypotheses.

📊 Designing reliable measurement instruments: Quantitative researchers need to design reliable measurement instruments for data collection. Reviewing the literature provides insights into the best practices and methodologies used in previous studies, ensuring the instruments are valid and reliable.

📊 Pre-planning: Quantitative research demands thorough pre-planning, whereby researchers must think about everything in advance, as the data collection process is often a one-time event. This includes tasks to be completed after data collection, such as data analysis.

The benefit of this front-loaded effort is that once the data is collected, a significant portion of the work is done. Researchers can then focus on analysing the data and drawing conclusions, which is relatively straightforward compared to the initial phases.

Qualitative research: back-loaded effort

In contrast, qualitative research is more flexible and iterative. This approach involves collecting non-numerical data through interviews, focus groups, or observations, and then analysing this data to gain insights into people's experiences, behaviours, and perceptions. The effort in qualitative research is predominantly back-loaded, meaning that a substantial amount of work is required after the data has been collected. This includes:

📝 Iterative approach: Qualitative research allows for adjustments as interviews progress. Depending on the extent of exploratory flexibility, researchers can refine their questions and approach based on the responses they receive, making the process more dynamic.

📝 Data analysis: Analysing qualitative data is often more complex and time-consuming than analysing quantitative data. Researchers must sift through large volumes of text, identify patterns, and interpret the findings in a meaningful way.

📝 Creative synthesis: Researchers need to creatively reshape or combine existing pieces of research, to formulate theoretical proposition. This involves integrating key elements from existing studies and presenting them innovatively.

In practice, researchers adopting a qualitative approach can start collecting the data earlier, and even use initial interviews to develop their interviewing skills and fine tune the focus and approach, with limited consequences if this is not entirely successful. The worst consequence is being unable to use that data in the final analysis, but they can quickly learn from the experience and adapt their approach for the following interviews.

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Despite the differences in effort distribution, both quantitative and qualitative research require a similar level of overall effort. The choice of approach must be based on other considerations than absolute effort. If you want to use effort as one of the criteria when choosing your methodological approach, it must be the type of effort - whether you prefer to front-load or back-load the effort.

Obviously, there are other more important influences on the choice of methodological approach, such as the research objectives, the type of data needed to answer them, the state of the art in the knowledge about the topic and the time and resources available. But this is a topic for another blog post (or maybe a video).

If you want to take your dissertation writing skills to the next level, consider getting hold of the entire Virtual Tutor Resource, which contains over 13 hours of videos explaining how to write a top dissertation. For example, one of the resources provides a fairly comprehensive explanation of Quantitative Conceptual Frameworks, while another one focuses on Qualitative conceptual frameworks. And if you feel you would benefit from direct input from an experienced supervisor when designing your methodology, consider getting my support.