Quant/Qual/Mixed

07/06/26

What general type of data shows broad patterns?

Numerical data

What do quantitative methods provide?

Breadth, generalizability, and measurable indicators

What are examples of quantitative methods?

Surveys, experiments, and big data analytics

What question do quantitative methods answer?

How many and how often?

What general type of data reveals meanings and mechanisms?

Narrative data

What do qualitative methods provide?

Depth, context, and insight into lived experiences

What are examples of qualitative methods?

Interviews, ethnography, and content analysis

What question do qualitative methods answer?

How and why?

What is the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods called?

Triangulation or mixed-methods

What can mixed-methods research produce?

Knowledge that is both empirically robust and richly informative

What is the key purpose of mixed-methods research?

To document a social trend and explain why it occurs

How has digital transformation changed the volume of research data?

It has drastically increased data on human behavior.

What is machine learning used for in social research?

Pattern recognition

What is network analysis used for in social research?

Mapping connections

What can big data analytics detect?

Correlations in massive datasets.

What does probabilistic/stochastic understanding mean in quantitative research?

Findings are uncertain rather than absolutely certain

What are all measurements subject to?

Error and bias.

What kind of research designs does quantitative research use?

Structured research designs

What helps maximize reliability in quant research?

Operational definitions and standardized data collection

What is an operational definition used for?

Turning concepts into measurable variables

What is a disadvantage of quant research?

It struggles to capture the full complexity of social reality such as human experiences and meanings

What is hypothesis testing?

a statistical method used to determine whether observed data provides enough evidence to support a specific claim or assumption about a larger population

What does statistical inference help researchers do?

It’s the broad process that helps make claims about a population from a sample

What does a p-value threshold reflect?

We can gather enough evidence to reject no effect, but not prove with certainty.

What do descriptive statistics summarize?

Basic features of collected data

What is bivariate analysis and some examples?

Analysis of exactly two variables: t-tests, ANOVA

What is multivariate analysis and some examples?

Analysis of three or more variables at once; logistic regression,

How should we treat well-supported hypotheses in post-positivism?

That they are always open to revision

What do theories in social science explain?

How and why things happen; help derive expected relationships among constructs

What usually comes before data collection; what does it identify?

conceptual framework; key constructs of interest

In the puzzle analogy, individual studies are ___

pieces of a puzzle

In the puzzle analogy, theory is ___

picture on the box

What type of data does quant research use?

Numeric data, statistics, and structured variables

What type of data does qual research use?

Textual, visual, observational, narrative, and unstructured data

What does qualitative research value over breadth?

Depth

What is the goal of a phenomenological study?

To describe the essence of a lived experience

Why can a qualitative researcher not be fully separated from the research process?

Their identity, values, and interactions influence it.

What is reflexivity in qualitative research?

Examining how the researcher’s assumptions and background affect the study

What is a qualitative interview?

Open-ended questioning used to elicit detailed participant accounts

How can interview data be prepared for analysis?

By transcriptionW

What type of responses do open-ended interviews seek?

Narratives, descriptions, and reflections

How is interview data commonly analyzed?

By coding it for themes

What is ethnography?

Immersion in a community or setting to understand its culture from within

What is a case study?

An in-depth examination of one bounded system, which includes person, group, institution, event, or other defined units

What is thematic analysis?

Coding data to identify themes

What is coding in qualitative research?

Labeling data segments according to their meaning

What is narrative analysis?

Analysis of the structure and content of stories

What does content analysis often quantify?

The occurrence of themes or words in texts

What is discourse analysis?

Examining language and how it reflects power or social norms

What is grounded theory analysis?

A systematic method for developing theory from data

What is triangulation?

Corroborating findings using different sources or methods

What types of phenomena are especially suited to qualitative research?

Social processes and systems

What is complementarity?

Using one method to elaborate on or clarify results from another method

What is development?

Using results from one method to inform the use of another method

What is initiation?

Using multiple methods to discover new or different perspectives

What is expansion?

Using different methods to examine different components of a research question

What is a sequential?

One type of data is collected and analyzed before the other in two distinct phases

What is the order in an explanatory sequential design?

Quantitative, then qualitative

to explain quant results with in-depth qual insights

What is the order of exploratory sequential design?

Qual, then quant

to develop a new measurement tool from qualitative exploration

What is a convergent mixed-methods design?

Qualitative and quantitative components are conducted in parallel and merged during analysis

What is an embedded mixed-methods design

One methodology is included within another as a supplementary copmonent

What is QUAL(quant)

A mainly qualitative project with an embedded quantitative component