Theme 4 in retrospect

The fourth theme, on quantative methods, led to some interesting discussions in the seminar, though admittedly not entirely on the supposed advantages of said methods above their qualitative counterparts. On my own part, I have mainy utilized the latter in my bachelor's researches, this decision being largely made from the conviction that for the area of content analysis if by far the most appropriate. This is caused mainly by the fact that such research - into a.o. film, tv series or videogames - featured only a very limited number of research objects, and therefore required a more detailed and less systematic approach. Quantative research, then, would play a large part in the reception analysis part of the same researches, adding a larger scope to put the established into a broader context, as well as shed light on the limitations of it.

Within my group, this was a consensus that was quickly agreed on, with all of us having previously used a combination of both in our academic work. The debate then turned to the subject of which of the two should have the major role in which kind of research, with the again near-immediate consensus being that quantative research worked well primarily in topics that required large-scale respondents and factual data, whereas qualitative researched was more appropriate for smaller scale research where motivations and reasoned arguments were more dominant.