The theoretical foundations of qualitative and quantitative methods are very different, but many researchers believe both methods should be used in the research study to increase validity and reliability. What advantages or disadvantages do you see in using both types of methods in a nursing study? Support your answer with current evidence-based literature.

There are both benefits and drawbacks to using qualitative as well as quantitative methods for a nursing research.

Both methods have their advantages.

Researchers can use qualitative and quantitative data to triangulate their findings, comparing and verifying them from multiple sources. The validity and reliability can be increased by using this method.

Strengths complementing each other: Quantitative and qualitative methods are different in their strengths. Qualitative methods, for example, are best suited to explore complex, nuanced phenomena while quantitative methods excel at generalizing results across a wider population.

Three-fold understanding improvement: Both methods provide an improved understanding of the problem. Quantitative and qualitative methods provide deeper insights into participants’ experiences, and quantitative methods provide more numerical and objective representations of data.

Both methods have their disadvantages.

Cost and time: Both quantitative and qualitative studies are expensive and can consume a lot of time. The researchers must allocate sufficient resources for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of both qualitative and quantitative data.

To conduct a study using mixed methods, the researchers must have expertise in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The researchers must be able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of each technique and understand how to combine them effectively.

3 Integration of results: Integrating both results can be difficult and require a lot of experience. Researchers should carefully evaluate the correlations between the quantitative and qualitative data to determine the best way to combine results.

Conclusion: Using both qualitative and quantitaive methods can help to provide a better understanding of the problem. It will also increase the validity and reliability of the study and eliminate some limitations. A mixed-methods research requires expertise, resources, and time.

Reference:

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method approaches. Sage Publications.