Evaluation: Qualitative Methods

Comparison to Quantitative Research

To understand the philosophy of qualitative inquiry, it is useful to compare it to quantitative research. Theorist John Van Maanen explains the difference within the metaphor of preparing a meal. In his view, quantitative studies are typically designed to identify variables that contribute to particular outcomes. Nearly everyone knows that flour, sugar, and other ingredients—when cooked at a certain temperature for a measurable amount of time—result in a cake. Life is more complicated than that, of course, but the idea is similar. Quantitative researchers seek to identify the factors that contribute to particular outcomes. Health communication researchers might identify variables that contribute to heart disease, patient satisfaction, or treatment success. Because the goal is often to isolate the variables that are most relevant from those that are not, quantitative research is often called reductionistic. In short, quantitative research allows people to predict, to some degree of probability, what is likely to happen, or not happen, if factors come together in a particular way.

Qualitative research operates differently, by focusing less on questions of what and more on questions of how. As Van Maanen puts it, rather than focusing on what ingredients/variables contribute to particular outcomes, qualitative researchers go into the metaphorical kitchen to see how a meal is prepared. The goal is not to isolate variables, but to explore what happens [Page 453]within the complexities of everyday life. The process is typically more holistic than reductionistic. For example, when Benjamin Chesluk and Eric Holmboe studied medical office personnel they found that most staff members worked as teams. By contrast, physicians rushed from one patient room to another in “frantic bubbles” that left them little time for reflection or teamwork. The researchers concluded that good intentions were not effective in increasing teamwork among physicians because the environment involved a shifting interplay of time limits, patient loads, physical layout, procedures, and cultural expectations, none of which were easily predicted or controlled.

One principle of qualitative research is that when it comes to the ongoing, everyday process of sense making, people experience an array of influences that converge and diverge according to circumstances. Qualitative researchers study how people negotiate meaning within these flexible and multifaceted environments.

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