Question

Rubin & Babbie, p. 57, 3.6 Practice-Related Exercise #3:

Suppose you have been asked to design a research study that evaluates the degree of success of a family preservation program that seeks to prevent out-of-home placements of children who are at risk of child abuse or neglect by providing intensive in-home social work services. Under what conditions might you opt to emphasize quantitative methods or qualitative methods in your design? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?

Answer 1

i would emphasize on qualitative design i i want to have in depth information about the programs and how is it affecting the children and different life aspects of those children, but i would emphasize on quantitative design if i want to have a numerical result which could be compared or which doesn't require in depth information.

Advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research

advantages

• It provides in depth information about participants or events and could find out the different important aspects and there relations
• it is free from research bias
• it gives insightful information
• it creates openness as it allows the participants to share their experiences without any limit
• it gives reason for a particular instance

disadvantages

• result of qualitative research is not replicable as it is not in mathematical form
• it is time consuming as it requires in depth information
• it is costly

Advantages and disadvantages of quantitative research

advantages

• it can be replicated and can be used for future implications and further studies
• it can be used for knowing relationship between two variables
• it provides statistical result
• it is time and cost effective
• it can be done on large sample

disadvantages

• it doesn't give in depth information about a phenomenon
• it does not tell about the reason behind the given result
• it restrict openness as it requires one ward or a choice based answer only