Abstract

GONZALEZ LOPEZ, Juan Luis  and  RUIZ HERNANDEZ, Paloma. Quantitative versus qualitative research: methodological or ideological dichotomy?. Index Enferm [online]. 2011, vol.20, n.3, pp.189-193. ISSN 1699-5988.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1132-12962011000200011.

Critical revision of the historical antagonism between qualitative vs. quantitative research in health sciences. We analyze the differences and inferences between both methodologies, concluding that quantitative/qualitative methods, as the ETIC/EMIC perspectives, the signs and symptoms, are orthogonal dimensions required to understand, so decipher reality as offering facts and meanings. However, in the her process of scientific construction, the nursing has chosen to oppose the differential qualitative fundamentalism versus biomedical quantitative orthodoxy. And although it is logical, it is still disturbing and counterproductive. After all, doctors and nurses have in common, against most of the sciences, the same object of study there isn't the regularity but the singularity of the disease and the individual. Health research methodology shouldn't be done with qualitative methodology for being nurse or quantitative for being biomedical, but must be indebted to the investigation subject. The facts are quantifiable, but not their signification. And both are two sides of same coin, dimensions of reality to which we can only approach from a proper perspective: to the facts quantitatively, qualitatively to their significance.

Keywords : Paradigm; Qualitative research; Quantitative research; Methodology; Nursing research.