RUDN journal of Sociology (Dec 2011)
On the Dichotomy of Qualitative and Quantitative Researches in Contemporary Scientific Methodology
Abstract
Argumentation in favor of overcoming the long-ago-established dichotomy of qualitative and quantitative scientific research is presented in the article. Proceeding from the view of materialistic dialecticians that every scientific research must deal with a subject, the author assumes that it is impossible to conduct a quantitative research without first establishing the quality to be studied. This also concerns measuring, which is referred only to quantitative procedures in literature. By way of illustration, the author designs two instruments for measuring the successfulness of political parties - the scale and the quotient of party successfulness. On the other hand, even the qualitative analysis usually involves certain quantifications. The author concludes that to achieve methodological correctness the existing dichotomy of qualitative and quantitative research should be considered as overcome and a typology of scientific research including predominantly qualitative and predominantly quantitative studies, depending on the methodological components prevailing in them, should be used.
