UNIT 3 - Qualitive and Quantitative research

Qualitative and Quantitative research

There are two types of research that can be used to find out information on various stats, figures and opinions on a product or just to generally get an idea of something you wish to invest production in, this can be separated into Quantitative and Qualitative. 

Quantitative research is information shown via stats and figures, so for example this can be shown via percentage or amount of money made, someone would use this form of research to find any information that may be numerical to show a broad overall look on a topic. This can show the success rate of a product and enables researchers to gain some form of knowledge on that basis. For example if someone wanted to research into how successful a film was then they would check the amount of money it had made at Box Office. If the rates and figures are high then the film would most likely be a success.

Quantitative research gives researchers a better understanding in to what a specific audience may enjoy/find appealing, so if someone else was to try and find out an idea to put out then quantitative research would show the figures and numerical information on a product or idea similar to theirs. This gives an insight as to whether it will be successful or not. This form of research can also show what is popular so someone could base their idea off of that. Furthermore this also shows audience preferences compared to a rival product so the researcher can make a decision or have an understanding off of that basis. For example at Box office the movie 'Suicide Squad had made 745.6 million USD - Google, this can represent the amount of people that wanted to go to watch the film and actually paid to view it, from that impressive amount a movie producer may want to think about making a movie similar to this as the amount of money made from it was very high. Also the film was Number 1 ranked in 4,255 theatres with an estimated average of making $31,418 - Box Office MoJo. 

However although this type of research is seen to be detailed and helpful there are some disadvantages. One of which would be that the stats and figures may not always be accurate and reliable for that matter. So someone would probably not get accurate results therefore cannot base their product off of those results and in turn may get a response/feedback the complete opposite of what they initially thought and read. In addition, in the example of an institution trying to find a specific audience based on age and gender, some figures only show amounts and do not go into detail on more specifically who and what. So the audience information is often missed out so there would be no ideal way of targeting an audience. Quantitative research does not go into the the opinions so therefore the "detailed" aspect of the results aren't reliable. Which can cause a incorrect or inaccurate answer for results/data.

Qualitative

Qualitative research is information which is more to do with reviews and facts instead of stats and figures. Qualitative research goes more into detail on audience opinion rather than the amount in number form. Qualitative Research is also used to uncover trends in thought and opinions, and dive deeper into the problem. This dwells deeper into the opinions of people rather than getting percentage amounts of who likes what for example. This can determine what people look for when buying a certain product. As an example if someone were to be doing some research and they want to find out whether someone likes or dislikes their product they'd then ask why which leads the interviewee to give an opinion based question. This would enable a flexible discourse.

Qualitative data gives researchers the chance to see what the people think of their product or a product,this an determine the changes made to said product or what they could do better in the form of improvements. This is beneficial to business owners as it improves their product for it to be more appealing to their target audience. Qualitative research can come in the form of interviews with certain people to get a review. for example when the new Iphone 7 came out apple had conducted surveys for customers who had bought the new tech. Many had complained about some of the new features on the Iphone such as it having no headphone jack and it requiring for the owner of the phone to buy separate wireless headphones which would cost an additional £150. This led to many bad reviews however due to Apples success with their previous models the sales were still moderately good as they are one of the worlds largest phone/technology brand.

There are some cons to this form of research. Just like quantitative research this is very time consuming as getting everyone within the surveys opinion would be lengthy and would take some thinking for the interview. The interviewee may not want to take some time to answer these questions and if they do there would be the chance of them "winging" some of the questions given. This form of data research is very effective but just like quantitative it has its cons in terms of time consumption. Both however are reliable for a thesis.This data is highly effective and can help[ business get an opinion orientated answer giving them more detail to work with when marketing off their product/production.