Professional Inquiry Tools (6B)- Qualitive v.s Quantitive

There are the two main differences between the type of researcher - qualitive and quantitive. Quantitive research mainly translates into numerical/statistical data. It determines a universal cause and effect to predict future patterns/comparisons, but has descriptive knowledge because explanation is needed.  

Personally I am a lot more attracted to the qualitive aspects because of its nature of its outcomes for the researcher. As my inquiry relates to personal experiences and opinions, and the ballet dancer’s feelings, this form of research would be more suitable. To list a few:

·      Relies on the participants’ words to be able to understand the phenomena

·      Investigates a range of possibilities and opinions where their views are used as a base for the inquiry- absolutely perfect!

·      Normally collects data in form of recoding, notes or video

·      Can come from many disciplinary purposes and situations- great for comparison

·      Flexible and sensible data is produced

·      Emphasis on holistic analysis

I could use a bit of quantitive research, as I would like to look into some scientific evidence (literature tool) to be able to back up my findings and help develop further questions- e.g moving to music as a stimulation, mirroring, endorphins when exercising.

Although qualitive research mainly focuses on one form of context, and is harder to apply to other situations, I aim for a multipurpose end product. With the final documentary/short video, I hope its intentions could apply not to just ballet dancers but to others for motivation.

Like qualitive analysis, I would like my research to be inspired by the idea of ‘how the social world is interpreted, understood, experienced, produced and constituted.’(Mason, 2002, pg.3) Also, ‘Qualitative analysis is often used when in-depth meaning that is hard to predetermine is part of the investigation being undertaken.’ (Reader 6, Pg 8)

This is exactly what I plan to do- to discover the true meaning of why ballet dancers dance, explain that tacit knowledge in order to produce pure quality.