Hypothesis: Men prefer bathing in lower temperature water than women do. In this way, quantitative research often involves coming into your research with some level of understanding or expectation regarding the outcome, usually in the form of a hypothesis that you want to test. The opportunities for nerding out are endless… We could see if there are significant differences in ideal water temperature between the sexes, or if there is some relationship between ideal bath water temperature and age! We could pop this information onto colourful, vibrant graphs, and use fancy words like “significant”, “correlation” and “eigenvalues”.
We could, for example, analyse these numbers to find the average temperature, or look to see how much these temperatures vary. With a quantitative approach, this data can be analysed in heaps of ways. And there will be a few of those striving for the 48☌ that is apparently the legal limit in England (now, there’s a useless fact for you). A couple of people may like the unnatural chill of 30☌ on the average weekday. Say, for instance, that Jane averages at around 46.3☌. If we were to ask 100 people to measure the temperature of their bathwater over the course of a week, we could get the average temperature for each person. To answer this question, you need to now put on your quantitative hat. But this raises a question: what is the perfect temperature for a bath? Or at least, what is the temperature of people’s baths more broadly? (Assuming, of course, that they are bathing in water that is ideal to them). As a person who is terrified of anything that isn’t body temperature or above, this seemed outright ludicrous. I was once told by someone to whom I am definitely not married that he takes regular cold showers. Now, what does this mean? How can this be used? It’s about exploring and understanding a broad question, often with very few preconceived ideas as to what we may find.īut that’s not the only way to analyse bathwater, of course… Qualitative research is used to understand human perception, world view and the way we describe our experiences. In other words, it’s great for exploratory research (for example, where your objective is to explore what people think or feel), as opposed to confirmatory research (for example, where your objective is to test a hypothesis). In this way, qualitative research can be incredibly rich and detailed, and is often used as a basis to formulate theories and identify patterns. All of these “softer” aspects can be better understood with qualitative research. You might not even be interested in the words at all, but in the body language of someone who has been forced one too many times into (what they believe) was scalding hot water during what should have been a romantic evening. You, as the researcher, could be interested in how the disagreement unfolds, or the emotive language used in the exchange. From interviews to focus groups to direct observation (ideally outside the bathroom, of course). With qualitative research, those heated disagreements (excuse the pun) may be analysed in several ways. This is because qualitative research helps you understand people’s perceptions and experiences by systematically coding and analysing the data. And while divorce rates due to differences in water-temperature perception would belong more comfortably in “quantitative research”, analyses of the inevitable arguments and disagreements around water temperature belong snugly in the domain of “qualitative research”. Many a husband and wife have never enjoyed a bath together because of their strongly held, relationship-destroying perceptions of water temperature (or, so I’m told). But, if you’re wanting to know how someone perceives the temperature of the bathwater, then that sentence can tell you quite a bit if you wear your qualitative hat. If you’re wanting to know the exact temperature of the bath, then you’re out of luck. What does that sentence mean? And is it useful?
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