Question
In cross-cultural psychology research, a broad range of techniques is utilized to determine the best way to access critical data. Each technique has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, laboratory experiments may offer great control and ability to examine issues of cause and effect, but may not always reflect actual real-world conditions, especially in cross cultural situations. As an additional example, long term field work and interviews conducted by living in a given cultural setting for a year or two, may offer the possibility of many nuanced observations, yet such qualitative work will not lead to statistical or experimental designs. Each method tends to have pros and cons, rather than one method being the “right” one for every situation. For this Discussion, you will explore the advantages and disadvantages of using different research methods in cross-cultural research.
Solution
Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Methods in Cross-Cultural Research
In cross-cultural research, people can use either qualitative or quantitative methods or both, depending on the nature of the study. The different approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. Specifically, the qualitative research approach has various advantages. Firstly, qualitative studies, such as interviews, provide a detailed description of experiences, feelings, and opinions of participants. Secondly, they are interpretivism and offer a holistic understanding of human experiences in social circumstances, especially participant-observation (Rahgman, 2017). Consequently, they provide a deeper understanding of an individual’s voices, meanings, and events. As a result, they allow the researcher to interact with the participant directly, where one can probe for details. On the other hand, the qualitative research approach has its disadvantages. First, the methods sometimes ignore contextual sensitivities and instead emphasize experiences and meanings (Wilson, 2014). Secondly, purely qualitative approaches might fail to account for cultural and social constructions of the studied variables. Thirdly, small samples pose the challenge of generalizability to the studied population (Harry & Lipsky, 2014). Ultimately, the research methods generate highly subjective data, which is prone to researcher bias.
Quantitative methods have numerous advantages that differentiate them from qualitative approaches. First, findings from such studies are generalizable to populations since they are generated from large and randomly selected samples. Secondly, the data is more objective and easier to analyze since they use statistical software such as SPSS (Powers & Powers, 2015). Therefore, the approach uses a positivist paradigm with measurable variables. However, the approach has several disadvantages, such as the tendency to ignore explanations and meanings of social phenomena. The methods also fail to account for the way social realities are influenced and sustained, as well as the way people interpret social actions. In the end, the methods take a snapshot of a phenomenon, and variables are measured at a particular moment without taking into account past or future events (Rahgman, 2017). Regardless of the advantages and disadvantages, the approaches are suited for studies depending on their nature.
References
Harry, B., & Lipsky, M. (2014). Qualitative Research on Special Education Teacher Preparation. In M. McCray, T. Brownell, & B. Lignugaris/Kraft (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Special Education Teacher Preparation (pp. 445-460). Routledge.
Powers, D. E., & Powers, A. (2015). The incremental contribution of TOEIC® Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing tests to predicting performance on real-life English language tasks. Language Testing, 32(2), 151-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265532214551855
Rahgman, M. S. (2017). The advantages and disadvantages of using qualitative and quantitative approaches and methods in language” testing and assessment” research: A literature review. Journal of Education and Learning, 6(1), 102-112. http://dx.doi:10.5539/jel.v6n1p102
Wilson, A. (2014). Being a practitioner: An application of Heidegger’s phenomenology. Nurse Researcher, 21(6), 28-33. http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/nr.21.6.28.e1251
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