The use of both qualitative and quantitative research designs is critical for different professionals, including nurses. This paper is aimed at discussing the primary strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This discussion can be important for medical workers who need to know how to examine the most important problems affecting healthcare.
On the whole, qualitative designs are useful for understanding the way in which people perceive a certain issue. In contrast, quantitative research methods are helpful for understanding the relations between different variables. This knowledge can be vital for the decisions of different healthcare professionals. These are the main questions that should be discussed in greater detail.
In many cases, healthcare professionals choose to use qualitative research design. In many cases, this approach is suitable for understanding the experiences of different stakeholders who are affected by a certain issue. In this way, a researcher can identify certain themes that are relevant to a group of people such as nurses or patients (Polit & Beck, 2012).
Moreover, this method facilitates in-depth exploration of a specific problem. For instance, one can speak about understanding of various aspects of employee turnover or job burnout. Nevertheless, the main weakness of this approach is that it cannot be used for the generalization of findings.
The results derived in this way cannot be applied in different settings. This is the main limitation that should be taken into consideration. For instance, the experiences of nurses in a certain medical organization may not be relevant to other medical organizations that have different labor practices. Therefore, this shortcoming should not be disregarded by medical workers.
In contrast, quantitative research design is also widely applied by medical professionals. The main advantage of this approach is that it can demonstrate to what extent different variables can influence one another. For instance, it can demonstrate if a clinical intervention can benefit patients suffering from a certain disease such as asthma (Gudnadottir & Kolbrun, 2014, p. 1).
Moreover, such findings can be generalized, and on their basis, one can develop evidence-based practices (Gudnadottir & Kolbrun, 2014). Nevertheless, this approach has a certain important weakness. In particular, a researcher can overlook the influence of a certain independent variable. For instance, a scholar can assume that the turnover of nurses is dependent only on the compensation that these medical workers receive. Nevertheless, this scholar may disregard the influence of other factors such as job design (Dawson et al., 2014, p. 3).
Therefore, the findings derived in this way may not be accurate. Overall, quantitative designs can be effective only if a researcher can accurately identify dependent and independent variables. This is the main limitation that should be considered by nursing professionals who often rely on quantitative methodology. These are the main elements that should be identified.
These examples indicate that researchers should be able to determine which approach is most suitable under certain circumstances. This choice is important for making informed decisions about certain issues that affect the work of healthcare organizations and the quality of patient care. Overall, qualitative design can be useful when a researcher wants to explore the opinions of many people about a certain issue. This information can be used for formulating a hypothesis. In contrast, quantitative designs can be beneficial for testing a certain assumption. These are the main aspects that can be singled out.
Reference List
Dawson, A. J., Stasa, H., Roche, M. A., Homer, C. S., & Duffield, C. (2014). Nursing churn and turnover in Australian hospitals: nurses perceptions and suggestions for supportive strategies. BMC Nursing, 13(1), 1-20.
Gudnadottir, M., & Kolbrun S. (2014). Advanced Nursing Intervention for Families of Children and Adolescents with Asthma: The Fathers Perspective. Nordic Journal Of Nursing Research & Clinical Studies, 34(2), 49-52.
Polit, D., & Beck, C. (2012). Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice. New York, NY: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.