Quantitative and Qualitative
Two ways to take up information's are quantitative and qualitative data which can be used separately but are mainly used together.
Quantitative data refers to anything that can be counted, measured, or given a numerical value this can be through measurements, numerical surveys, and statistics. The whole purpose of quantitative data is to give information about how much of something there is. Some examples of quantitative inputs have the “How much?” “How many?” or “How often?” aim of questions.
However, qualitative data is more descriptive and expresses more language rather than numeric values which means this cannot be measured or counted but focuses on the words used to describe certain characteristics or ways of being. The aim of qualitative data is to answer the “Why?” and/or “How?” questions. This is used to let the participants express their thoughts, feelings, and actions without them feeling pressured or embarrassed.
Within these are focus groups, questionnaires, face-to-face interviews in the street, phone interviews and opinion websites.
Focus groups
Focus groups are a type of qualitative research. Through observations of people's common interests, target groups are created through common/similar answers, this is used to focus on group questions in order to guide future research on consumer decisions, products and services, or controversial topics. Focus groups are often used in marketing, library science, social science, and user research disciplines.
Advantages
They can provide more natural feedback than individual interviews and are easier to organise than experiments or large-scale surveys/questionnaires. The results are more in depth. Focus groups are flexible and adaptable to suit the audience wanted with instant reactions from the certain group and alongside that it is cost efficient.
Disadvantages
One of the main disadvantages is that it is really time consuming to analyse the data gained and then also put it into use. Participants may be shy or unwilling to give information either in person or online which makes it difficult to gather data about the certain group.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires are the most common way of collecting data, they are basically surveys that can be a mixed type of research as it can have quantitative research questions or/and qualitative research questions but usually it includes both in order to have the actual statistic numerical data and the reason behind the numbers.
Advantages
Some advantages are that questionnaires can be and are most commonly anonymous and confidential making the responses unbiased and generally more honest due to taking away the fear of being judged alongside personal information being protected, they are cost effective as they are usually free to make, time efficient as they are quite easy and quick to answer, and they are quite accessible as in nowadays most people have access to the internet or can get access to it and if not there could be physical copies of them.
Disadvantages
Some disadvantages are that some people may give dishonest answers as they might think if they answer in a certain way, they might benefit from it or other reasons, questionnaires might lack in responses due to fatigue, boredom or being busy and this might affect the collection of results which might not show a true reflection of the desired audience opinions, the customers true feelings may be interpreted differently than they might actually be as the questionnaires cannot really tell someone's feelings and no one can interpret their feelings to be 100% accurate as it is not face-to-face, and complicated use of language may cause the audience unclear of what the question is asking them which could make them interpret it in different ways than desired which would make inaccurate results of data.
Face-to-Face Interviews
Face-to-face street interviews are mainly quantitative ways of research and is quite self-explanatory meaning people approaching strangers on the street or in public places asking targeted questions which are noted either physically or digitally whilst the interviewer acts as an interpreter.
Advantages
Some advantages of face-to-face street interviews are that emotional and behavioural aspects can be noticed making their opinions be interpreted in a more accurate way, and it is easier to catch the people’s attention and keep them focused as there aren’t as many distractions as there could be online.
Disadvantages
Some disadvantages are that it is time consuming to go to a desired populated public area and try and find people that are willing to take part in the interview, they are not really cost efficient as all the staff need to be paid and given the required equipment whereas online based research would not require to pay the staff and additional equipment, and a final disadvantage would be the interviewer as some interpretations might be slightly inaccurate also the interviewer may have different biases and both would affect the results.
Phone Interviews(Cold Calling)
Cold calling phone interviews is a term used when telemarketing agencies contact a person without them previously expressing interest in their agency products or/and services and asking them targeted questions in order to gather data or just to give the people information about their products in order to gain new clients.
Advantages
There are not a lot of advantages to cold calling, but the major ones are that the caller might form a connection with the called person which could make the person called become interested in the products offered and become a potential buyer or become engaged if it is a survey, the other major advantage is that it spreads information about the agency and their possible products which could potentially bring new clients.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantages of cold calling are that most people are irritated by cold calling and may not answer due to not recognising the number or if they answer usually respond in a negative way due to being annoyed of being called or due to thinking it is a fraud agency alongside that people might just lie about their information just to get rid of the call or might just hang up making it really hard to get results from people which does not make this method cost effective either.
Opinion Websites
Opinion websites are also quite self-explanatory as they are sites where people may give certain information's like age, gender, political parties and so on and then give their opinions about certain people or topics relevant or not to nowadays subjects. The opinions may be diverse and controversial as long as they are respectful in which some opinion sites may just implement specific type of answers to avoid disrespectful opinions and people getting offended.
Advantages
Some advantages are that the opinion websites are accessible and can reach a wider audience as different opinions can also come from different countries depending if the site is made accessible for other countries, it lets people actually choose what their opinion is about their own interests rather than chosen topics by others which makes the results from gathered data more accurate, and it makes it easier to gather data from targeted groups by gathering data from topics related to the research you are conducting.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantages are that the opinions may be biased due to beliefs or may be dishonest due to social pressure and embarrassment which makes results from gathered data inaccurate, and another major disadvantage is that there may be some spams of same opinions from a user, random answered opinions, and irrelevant opinions that are not related to the discussed topic which massively affects the gathering of data giving inaccurate information.
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