{"id":3113,"date":"2009-05-23T05:39:14","date_gmt":"2009-05-23T05:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3113"},"modified":"2009-05-23T05:40:37","modified_gmt":"2009-05-23T05:40:37","slug":"qualitative-vs-quantitative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3113","title":{"rendered":"Qualitative vs. Quantitative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drew Conway<\/strong> of Zero Intelligence Agents<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>asks a great question of all social science and humanities folk <\/a>in the readership:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nye and Drezner on Quantitative Scholarship<\/a><\/p>\n

As a student in a department that covets rational choice and high-tech quantitative methods, I can assure you none of my training was dedicated to learning the classics of political science philosophy. On the other hand, what is stressed here-and in many other “quant departments”-is the importance of research design. This training requires a deep appreciation of qualitative work. If we are producing relevant work, we must ask ourselves: “How does this model\/analysis apply to reality? What is the story I am telling with this model\/analysis?” <\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether you are a producer, consumer or tourist of political science research you probably have an opinion on this debate, and I’d like to hear it.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Drew asks\u00a0an important question. “Research Design” is inherently an act\u00a0of qualitative and normative judgments.\u00a0If the researcher is\u00a0lacking a consciously constructed\u00a0and identifiable\u00a0intellectual framework or lens, they\u00a0will still have one by default, except it is likely to be composed of contradictory\u00a0hodgepodge of\u00a0unconsciously acquired biases, hiding under a presumption of objectivity. That’s not an optimum perspective from which to select objects to measure and yardsticks with which to measure them.<\/p>\n

The comment I left at Drew’s site was:<\/p>\n

Quantitative analysis is sharpening the focus of the telescope or microscope. Qualitative analysis is knowing what’s worth looking at.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being trained as a historian, I’m a qual dude but quant tools can tell me when I’m on target or by how much I may be off. Or if I am full of crap. On the other hand, quant scholars can be like drunks looking for their car keys under a streetlamp because that is where the light is. Quants need data and not every significant variable is the one that is easiest to isolate and measure. Or measure beyond mere correlation. Or at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quant-Qual can never be either\/or any more than we should try walking on one leg.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We need more consilience<\/a>\u00a0and less compartmentalization in intellectual life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Drew Conway of Zero Intelligence Agents\u00a0asks a great question of all social science and humanities folk in the readership:\u00a0 Nye and Drezner on Quantitative Scholarship As a student in a department that covets rational choice and high-tech quantitative methods, I can assure you none of my training was dedicated to learning the classics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,46,24,33,78,336,462,522,558,31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-analytic","category-cognition","category-consilience","category-ideas","category-intellectuals","category-metacognition","category-questions","category-social-science","category-synthesis","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}