Research: Quantitative vs. Qualitative

When researching, there are two types of research that can be done: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative is the measuring of “how much” of something. Qualitative, on the other hand, is the measuring of the quality. In market research, it “uncovers the hows and the whys of consumer behavior.” The article, “Qualitative Research: Adapting with the Needs of Researchers?” from the market research magazine Quirks, discusses why we have qualitative research and how it has changed to benefit market research.

For this year’s Quirk’s Corporate Reacher Report, corporate researchers were asked about their pain points and challenges. Some of the pain points included the budget and assigning to many projects to the staff. The challenges, however, were high in the qualitative research area with “inability of insights to drive action” being 50% of the corporate researcher’s answers.

According to the article, corporate researchers believe that qualitative research is more effective at gaining insights that are useful.  Some of the methods that researchers view as effective include: online qualitative/focus groups, mobile-specific surveys, social media research, and text analytics.

Technology has changed the ways of qualitative research in scale, geography, cost, depth of insight, and speed.

Scale: In text analytics, customer service information and social media analytics give structure to the large scale of unstructured data.

Geography: Through mobile devices and online qualitative, it is easier to participate in qualitative research since these methods are available right at the tip of your fingers.

Cost: Online qualitative research has lowered the cost of travel and projects within the corporate research field.

Depth of Insight: Communities provide deeper insight than some traditional methods.


Speed: Speed is one of the top two corporate challenges. Social media and community improves speed-to-insight; however, online qualitative groups are reported to not be much faster.