response etho 8
In the progress of the score so far, my biggest challenge has been to more finally differentiate the nuances between quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. The quantitative realm test be relatively easy, since one can implement yes or no responses, or responses on a scale of, say, 1 to 5, or the typical "excellent, very good, good, just OK, poor" scale, and so forth. Even in quantitative data collection, you occasionally get the response to a yes and no question of "occasionally" or "mostly". This can prevent a challenge when trying to bucket that response more accurately, and might require a follow-up question to confirm. The problem with any follow question on a quantitative response is that it opens up the door to possible bias. For example, if someone says "I ordered a coke", and you ask "what size", and they say "a bigger one", a follow-up question could be "was that a large?", when in actuality, it might have been a medium, or just a small that's larger than what they expected. Enough of these types of responses would significantly taint the study was subjectivity.
In the qualitative realm, an open ended question intended to solicit a qualitative response could easily get a quantitative reply instead. For example, asking the subject how they like a certain product, with them responding that they liked it. How, then, does one follow-up that response without unintentionally adding bias of the liked being greater than it actually was? It is possible that they liked the product but did necessarily care for it enough to purchase it again, for example. That might require shifting the responses from qualitative to quantitative, two find out how much they liked it on a scale, and from that response, determine the likelihood that they would purchase the product in the future.
The more I engage in qualitative research methodology is, the more I realize the potential for companies to hire a research firm with the express intent on skewing the responses in their favor. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi cola would both be able to provide research that shows that consumers perforate their products over their competitors. In an ideal world, one of them would have to be wrong, but in a skewed study, qualitative questions could be here skewed towards leaving the respondent to favor a certain product over another. This is where another factor of research comes into play, and that factor is the scientific method. In a research study needs to be subject to peer review, and scrutiny. Subsequent research would validate or invalidate the study. If subsequent research validates a study, then that study has passed the scientific method. However, if subsequent studies fail to produce and the same outcome, then the original study would fail the scientific method. This is extremely important, and that many organizations rely on a study to bolster a claim. However, whether that study has passed the scientific method or not is often unclear. A research professional conducting a study must be willing to subject the findings of that study to the scientific method. Failure to do so would, understandably, question the integrity of matches the study, but the research professionals associated with that study.
Bay, M., & Fabian, A. V. (2015). Race and retail: Consumption across the color line. Rutgers University Press. Funderburg, L. (2017). Black, white, other: Biracial Americans talk about race and identity. Sixth Borough Ink.