`Quantitative' and `Qualitative' Research: An Analysis

It is widely believed that there is a clear distinction between `quantitative' and `qualitative' research, and these embedded or institutionalised terms profoundly affect the practice of such research. In this article the clarity and/or usefulness of the distinction is challenged together with the whole idea that there are given `methodologies' for research. Almost everything turns on conceptual clarity in relation to the initial research-questions: that leads the research to methods which follow logically from the concepts involved. The alleged `quantitative'/`qualitative' distinction does no more than pre-empt methods and procedures of research which should be left open.