Chapter 11 – Quantitative & Qualitative
Table of Contents
Quantitative Research……………………………………………………………………………..2
Qualitative Research………………………………………………………………………………5
Quantitative vs Qualitative: Arguments for Incompatibility……………………………………...9
Quantitative vs Qualitative: Arguments for Complementarity…………………………………..10
Support for Qualitative…………………………………………………………………………..11
Hermeneutics
Social Constructionism
Postmodernism
Science Wars Revisited…………………………………………………………………………..12
Is too much respect for the Psychology of Science bad for morale?.............................................13
Deterministic vs Stochastic Processes………………………………………………………………….13
1
, Where does psychology belong? Humanities or natural sciences?
Long-standing debate. Natural sciences get more funding for research. Snow notices that these
two different ‘cultures’ don’t speak. Some say that psychology is confused: it wants to identify
itself with a natural science. However, by doing so, it misses out on a lot of things (we don’t
consider subjective experience, politics, ideology, art, literature: on average, we assume people
are interchangeable. We are interested in the ‘universal person’ irrespective of its context). Some
say its fits better with the humanities (where it was part of, and still is in some places).
Research is quantitative, whereas practice is qualitative (clinical psychologists interview
people and consider subjective experience).
Quantitative Research – to measure is to know
based on quantifiable data (numbers); associated with the natural-science approach based on the
hypothetico-deductive model.
Characterized by:
- controlled experiments
- measurement procedures
- statistics to analyze data
Tendency to objectify as much as possible. It is nomothetic (search for universal laws).
The worldview that goes along with quantitative research is positivism: focus on discovering
objective reality and revealing causal relationships. Assumptions that our methods can do that.
Driven by what we can measure, rather than what we want to measure: “psychology is like a
drunk man who searches for his keys under the street lantern because the light is better there,
even though he lost his keys somewhere else”.
Assumptions
• Realism
there is an objective reality to be discovered outside of people’s minds by using the
scientific method. This is not as extreme as positivism, since trial and error is assumed.
2
Table of Contents
Quantitative Research……………………………………………………………………………..2
Qualitative Research………………………………………………………………………………5
Quantitative vs Qualitative: Arguments for Incompatibility……………………………………...9
Quantitative vs Qualitative: Arguments for Complementarity…………………………………..10
Support for Qualitative…………………………………………………………………………..11
Hermeneutics
Social Constructionism
Postmodernism
Science Wars Revisited…………………………………………………………………………..12
Is too much respect for the Psychology of Science bad for morale?.............................................13
Deterministic vs Stochastic Processes………………………………………………………………….13
1
, Where does psychology belong? Humanities or natural sciences?
Long-standing debate. Natural sciences get more funding for research. Snow notices that these
two different ‘cultures’ don’t speak. Some say that psychology is confused: it wants to identify
itself with a natural science. However, by doing so, it misses out on a lot of things (we don’t
consider subjective experience, politics, ideology, art, literature: on average, we assume people
are interchangeable. We are interested in the ‘universal person’ irrespective of its context). Some
say its fits better with the humanities (where it was part of, and still is in some places).
Research is quantitative, whereas practice is qualitative (clinical psychologists interview
people and consider subjective experience).
Quantitative Research – to measure is to know
based on quantifiable data (numbers); associated with the natural-science approach based on the
hypothetico-deductive model.
Characterized by:
- controlled experiments
- measurement procedures
- statistics to analyze data
Tendency to objectify as much as possible. It is nomothetic (search for universal laws).
The worldview that goes along with quantitative research is positivism: focus on discovering
objective reality and revealing causal relationships. Assumptions that our methods can do that.
Driven by what we can measure, rather than what we want to measure: “psychology is like a
drunk man who searches for his keys under the street lantern because the light is better there,
even though he lost his keys somewhere else”.
Assumptions
• Realism
there is an objective reality to be discovered outside of people’s minds by using the
scientific method. This is not as extreme as positivism, since trial and error is assumed.
2
