Quantitative or qualitative? My shift from the study of numbers to the study of humans

Abstract

Educational research is mostly about the study of human action and its implications and consequences within an educational context. Traditionally, researchers within this relatively new social science, just like other social scientists before them, have relied on adopting and adapting the quantitative research methodologies developed over the centuries within the natural sciences. But the increasing understanding that human behaviour, unlike particles in physics and chemicals in chemistry, is conditioned by influential personal and social attributes such as beliefs, attitudes, emotions, health, ambitions and social standing, has given rise in recent decades to serious rethinking about the appropriate manner in which we may gain an understanding into the human mind and actions.