Monday 7 April 2014

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Quantitative

Quantitative research is all based on fact and statistics. In order to get this type of information from someone you will have to ask them a Closed Question. A closed question is a way of getting a really short answer and instant result. For example I could ask, Do you prefer Mac or PC? The answers that I would get out of this would be I prefer Mac or vice versa. If I asked a range of people, I could use this information to create a statistic, from that I can make graphs.
Another way to get this information is to do questionnaires and use a scale of 1-4. You should not use a scale from 1-5 because if someone is not sure about their answer they can easily choose 3 to make it easy which means you do not get a definitive answer. Using 1-4 forces them to make the decision between high and low.
An example of when I used this was for my Video Installation. I asked, in a questionnaire, how much people liked using their mobile phones and they had to choose between 1-4.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is based on opinion. To get this information you will use Open Questions. An open question is a way to get a more opinion based response. For example when asking about Macs and PCs' you should ask why they prefer their choice. From this you are not able to create graphs but you can dissect their selections as to why they made their choices, such as things they dislike and Macs or PCs'. This gives you more of an overview about the whole subject and can allow you to make a decision yourself.
An example that I used is for my FMP research when I interviewed some one about living with an alcoholic. My question was, Can you explain what is was like living with an alcoholic? Using this question allowed me to get a massive amount of information, which gave me more of an understanding towards the subject.


You are able to use both these types of research techniques in a video production. Quantitative would be used in the form of Vox Pops and Qualitative would be used in interviews.

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