Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research Essay Example

the society.

Through the process of observation, researchers need to record and analyze behavior and interaction as they occur naturally (Marshall and Rossman, 1999 ), so, the ability of understanding non-verbal words in the correct way is really important to researchers to have a precise result (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003 ). For example, if the subjects are from different countries and with different cultural backgrounds, the researcher must clearly understand that gestures and acial expressions may indicate different meaning in different culture in advance. In addition, another disadvantage of observation is that it is a time-consuming approach that needs researchers to spend considerable time to make the result more comprehensive (Baker, 2006). Also, there are also some ethical problems such as getting the permission of the subjects that plan to observe, but this may cause them to change their behavior (Adams et al. , 2007), and as a result, influence the objective of observation.

Overall, observation is a useful approach to obtain the most real information, but the ethical problem has a passive impact on the validity and reliability of the result because people will know they are observed and change their behavior when asking for permission. b) Description of observation practice The author firstly conducted an observation at Chef Hallam on 16th November; the observation time was twenty minutes, from 12. 20a. m to 12. 40a. m.

The observation was conducted in a group of six, each group member responsible for one kind of food, so the total number of observed food is six, that is pizza, cracker, herby diced potatoes, pasta, rice, pie. At the beginning of the observation, all

observers stood near the table which is used to list food, but that disturbed the work of the staff and the customers expressed they were uncomfortable to choosing food under observation, so observers changed the position stood near the checkout counter to observe and record the food the customer choose and meanwhile record the gender of the customer.

After observation, group member shared record information to conduct each own research. The result shows a light food preference of females but not be able to show whether male have a food preference due to the limited number of male. c) Reflection in relation to theory Generally, the observation went smoothly, especially when working as a group to conduct the observation the efficiency is very high.

The author changed the position while observing influenced the coherence of the observation and missed several customers, even it did not have significance influence to the result, but to an observation which needs to record all the customers through observation, the consequence will be serious. Therefore, choose an appropriate position to observe is important to make the observation smooth (Baker, 2006). In addition, researchers have to conduct the observation unobtrusive. In many cases, people may wonder the action of the researchers and they may change their behavior once they realized they are being observed (Adams et al. 2007). These changed behaviors are known as demand characteristics (Collis and Hussey, 2009), the result of observation may not objective because the process of conducting result seems followed the requirement of researchers. Since the objective is to explore the food choices of males and females, which indicates the larger the sample to

observe the more clear the result will be. But the whole observation time is just 20minutes and 35 people; the result does not show an obvious preference of males.

Furthermore, an appropriate observation strategy is also important for efficient observation (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). The result shows some ambiguity because the strategy of observation was based on each kind of food but not gender, one customer maybe choose more than one kind of food, there are some overlaps of the records among observers, so the data maybe not that of accurate. In addition, through observation, the author could just learn a phenomenon; the result could be a research issue, more depth researches need to be conducted to make the research more profound.

By conducting an interview, researchers could be able to explore the reasons for a person’s behavior; in addition, by asking questions directly, researchers could clarify the problems (such as problems caused by cultural difference) encountered (Tharenou, Donohue and Cooper, 2007). Also during the interview, if the interviewees cannot understand the questions, interviewers could be able to explain to make the interview smoothly. Furthermore, factors such as passive emotions of interviewees could influence the interview situation and may cause problems and misinterpretation of the informants’ statements (Bynner and Striblry, 1978).

Through a face-to-face interview, interviewer could be able to perceive the emotions of interviewees during the interview and adjust strategies flexibly by encouraging respondents to relax rather than creating a rigid environment (Keats, 2001). Therefore, the interview could better deal with the variability during the process of the interview and could make the result more profound, precise and valid. However, it

is not easy to conduct an interview successfully and get what the researchers want.

Interviewers must hold a neutral attitude to conduct the interview and avoid influencing the interviewees (Staples, 1991). In addition, researchers should be aware of the truth of the data gathered from interview, critically use the information given by the interviewee. The interviewees always wear ‘two heats’, they tend to behave and have different responses in public and in private, interviewers have to learn to make judge of the result objectively (Bynner and Striblry, 1978; Collis and Hussey, 2009).

Overall, interview could help researchers explore more depth information but it needs interviewers to have high interview skill so that the result could be profound, precise and valid. b) Description of interview practice As for the interview, in the preparation stage, the author listed a serious of questions need to ask, some of the questions need a general answer and some need specific answer; noticed the interviewee the topic so that the interviewee could have a preparation for the issue.

Then clarified the time and place with the interviewee so that the interviewee could confirm attendance. In addition, the author chose to conduct the interview in the dormitory so that the whole process would not be disturbed like observation. On 3rd December, before start the interview, the author also told the interviewee to relax and took it as a daily conversation. At the beginning of the interview, both the interviewer and the interviewee were nervous, especially the interviewee answered the questions directly without any extension.

And because of language problem, the interviewee could not understand the meaning of the

questions, so the interviewer had to explain the questions again and again. But as the interview continued, the two parties felt more relax, the interviewee was used to the ways of the questions asked, and the interviewer tried to encourage the interviewee to talk more beyond the questions. While the atmosphere was become too relax the interview started to deviate the direction planned. So the interviewer had to come back to the question list and the atmosphere became rigid again.

When the interview was complete, the questions planned were all get an answer. c) Reflection in relation to theory Overall the interview went smoothly. But at the beginning of the interview, both of the two parties felt nervous and silence lasted for a while, the interviewer did not deal with this situation immediately due to lack interview skills and did not know how to encourage the interviewee to talk more. Stewart and Jr (2006) indicate that the expression of the two parties---the interviewer and the interviewee, determine whether an interview could be successfully conducted.

If the two parties do not willing to communicate, the interview could not be able to continue. While between the two parties, the interviewer plays a dominant role because it is the interviewer who is in charge of questions that need respondents to answer (Keats, 2001). So the interviewers should have high interview skills, including listening skill and personal interaction skill (Marshall and Rossman, 1999). As the interview continued, the direction seemed out of the track, not focus on the food preference based on gender but more discussed the food itself.

In many cases, approximately one-third of the

interviewers ‘deviated frequently and markedly from their instructions, sometimes failing to explain the key terms or to repeat them as required, sometimes leaving them out altogether, shorting questions, or failing to follow up certain ambiguous answers in the manner required’ (Bynner and Striblry, 1978, p172). The interviewer prepared a question list but due to lack of interview skill, the list was just used to ask questions but not as an instruction. So, making full use of the question list is important to help the interviewer achieve goals of the interview.

The questionnaire is efficient in terms of material and human resource, especially if the target population are huge and are scattered geographically (Mann,1998; Staples, 1991). It costs little to collect data; especially when the questionnaire is conducted through internets such as email attachments or weblinks which can be given to many people at one time (Staples, 1991). A questionnaire could contain a wide range of topic issues so that the researchers could be able to explore wider information; and they can be delivered in a variety of ways, researchers could conduct the research more flexibly (Mann, 1998; Jones et al. 2008). In addition, the result could be more objective because the respondents could complete the questionnaires without the bias introduced by researchers (Staples, 1991). One obvious disadvantage of the questionnaire is the researchers are not able to obtain any further information or clarification of the respondents’ opinion (Keats, 2001), particularly when questionnaires are sent through the internet, there may be little or no contact between researchers and participants (Jones et al. , 2008). The low response rate is a problem of using questionnaires.