What Do the Numbers Mean? Posted on March 1, 2006 Stephen Moore (bio) discusses the need for qualitative research underlying quantitative research.

When a researcher goes out to collect data, almost always that data comes back in the form of numbers. My question is, 'What do those numbers mean?' Unless you've taken all the steps to establish that the number means what you think it means, when you do your statistical test, it will be meaningless if the answer is no, but it's worse than meaningless because it seems to settle a research question.

But if the data, the evidence, on which that conclusion is based is not competent, does not support, does not touch, that logic, then you've done a disservice by saying, 'Well, the answer to this question apparently is no.' But if they had done their homework, if they had created a valid and reliable measurement device, they would have found that the answer is actually yes.

So they've closed the door on an important area of research wrongly, and it's not just not finding what you want, but thinking that you've found out what you want and being wrong that is the real danger to not doing the qualitative research that must always underlie quantitative research.

People make a false distinction between qualitative and quantitative research, and many quantitative researchers are proud of the fact that they never have to touch the sloppier kind of data, that they're pure numbers, but you can operate all you want on those pure numbers, and if those numbers don't mean what you think they mean, you'll actually do a disservice to the field. The only way to find out if they mean what you think they mean is to do massive amounts of qualitative examination of the entire phenomenon, including the assessment aspects of the phenomenon, before you go ahead and do your statistical test.

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