Bottoms Up!

I find it helpful to remember that qualitative research is exploratory and uses a bottom-up process (Creswell, 2008). Qualitative research creates new theories from collected data. On the other hand, quantitative research is confirmatory and works from the top-down (Creswell, 2008). In quantitative research, theories are tested with collected data (Lichtman, 2006). Further, deductive reasoning (top-down) begins with the theory, however, in inductive reasoning (bottom-up), we end with the theory (Fox, 2008; Shank, 2008).

Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Fox, N. (2008). Induction. In Lisa M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. (pp. 430-431). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412963909.n212

Lichtman, M. (2006). Qualitative research in education: A user’s guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Shank, G. (2008). Deduction. In Lisa M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. (pp. 208-209). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412963909.n105