質的研究と量的研究のあいだの論争

Qualitative versus Quantitative Debate

qualitative versus quantitative debate

A *methodological issue in sociology with arguments for and against a distinction between qualitative and quantitative studies. The debate arises from a more deeply rooted distinction drawn between different *epistemological positions. Quantitative methodology has generally been associated with *positivist epistemology and is usually regarded as referring to the collection and analysis of numerical data. Qualitative methodology, on the other hand, is generally associated with interpretative epistemologies and tends to be used to refer to forms of data collection and analysis that rely on understanding the *meanings of social phenomena. The debate became prominent in the 1970s as a result of a backlash against the status accorded to the 'scientific' stance of positivist methodology in sociological writing. In these works, sections on qualitative data -- if they were included at all -- usually referred to them as involving' soft' techniques of interest only in respect of providing intuitions or hunches for the formulation of *hypotheses, that could then be tested more rigorously using quantitative or 'hard' data. Growing interest in *phenomenological approaches in the 1970s led to scepticism about the relevance of the natural scientific model of research for the *social sciences.

It has increasingly been recognized that qualitative and quantitative approaches are complementary and that no viable understanding can be achieved without the use of both. An early example is Norman Denzin's strategy of *triangulation, while more recent work has stressed the idea of 'mixed methods'. Practising researchers have recently suggested that the distinction between the two types of data is considerably more blurred than is suggested in the theoretical debate. It has also been pointed out that different methodologies are not necessarily tied to particular epistemological positions, and that there are an increasing number of techniques of analysis that defy classification into a simplistic dualist typology. Nevertheless, some still hold that the epistemologies underpinning the different types of a data are so divergent that any attempt at combination or reconciliation is impossible. The continuing debate is paralleled in part-but only in part-by the distinction between *macrosociology and microsociology. Some researchers adopt the position of there being a substantive difference between observing and analysing regularities and associations at the macro-level of social structures, institutions, and aggregate data, and observing or analysing interactions and causal processes at the micro-level of human actors. The former tends towards quantitative analysis while the latter encourages interpretive understanding.

In an important recent intervention, Gary King et al. (Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, 1994) have pointed out that although there are various styles of social-scientific research there is only one logic of scientific inference. The logic of good quantitative and good qualitative research designs does not therefore differ.

A dictionary of sociology / edited by John Scott, Oxford University Press (2014)

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量的研究と質的研究のバトルロイヤルの神話

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A dictionary of sociology / edited by John Scott, Oxford University Press (2014)

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