June 17, 2021

Discussing qualitative vs quantiative research

Marie Ireland has begun her PhD journey at Charles Sturt University. She is working on a PhD by prior publication supervised by Dr Sarah Verdon, Dr Kate Crowe and myself.

This evening (starting at 9pm Australian time/7am US time) we were discussing qualitative research and how there are many truths in qualitative research; whereas, quantitative research aims to find the one truth. We were pondering this when we realised that a perfect question to illustrate "many truths" was "Is it currently night or day?" At the time, it was 10:50pm for Sarah and myself and 8:50am for Marie. It was summertime for Marie and wintertime for Sharynne and Sarah. Whose truth was correct? Both.

Marie, Sharynne and Sarah

Sarah pondering...