Hopefully this works this time

The difference in the validity between quantitative and qualitative research is rather significant. I feel as though when it comes to publishing a valid study that can be used to conclusively support or deny a hypothesis a quantitative research method should be used. The most important part of an experiment or a study when you're looking for an answer is that the experiment can be replicated over and over and over again and yield the same results, I feel that this is only possible in quantitative research. There is an argument of course that there could for instance in the discussion we had in class about the senator who was winning the polls in I believe Kentucky, the numbers were in his favor across the board, he was ahead and every poll predicted his victory when out of nowhere he says something foolish and smears his public relations and his reputation with the voters and the next poll shows him plummet so yes in this instance it's not something that stays constant. In math and science however it is essential that the results remain consistent in order to formulate a law, or in the field of medicine the effectiveness of a certain drug in a general population.

On the other hand there are certain environments where qualitative research would provide a more accurate description and explanation for certain things, mainly in fields like sociology and psychology. Although yes you could sit there and involve numbers in terms of how many people reacted this way and conclude that a certain object when experienced by a bystander yielded a conclusion, qualitative is more concerned with why things are happening, by observing and not formulating an opinion. Qualitative is a much more hands on approach by getting down to business and getting  your hands dirty, last semester I took a Russian history class and we were assigned a book to read where the author put themselves in a poor Russian village and documented their culture. The only problem that I saw with this method of observation (just like we discussed about different news programs on TV) was that the entire book was at the mercy of the authors interpretation, and it was very obvious at certain points where she looked down on their traditions and would exaggerate certain things. The book had a translators critique at the end of each chapter and he would discuss that yes, certain things seemed bizarre to the author but that was because she was a pampered middle-upper class citizen whereas this village was filled with serfs who followed traditions from thousands of years ago to keep their morale up. With this kind of research you can skew anything to your liking and most people will take your word for it because you appear credible because say for instance you're on TV or you wrote a book. The other way of using qualitative research is to become the group that you're studying. Say for instance you wanted to write a report on how military personnel are treated you could request to observe the lifestyle for a few months and what have you, but since you requested it they're only going to let you observe the star performers and they'll put on a show for you. Or you preform a covert study (which is probably illegal to publish) and sign up for an enlistment and record all of the behind the scenes action. It goes with the old saying about integrity where you're character is judged by what you do when no one's watching.