Qualitative and quantitative research

Research generally falls into two different categories: qualitative and quantitative research. What is the difference between them?

Qualitative research is primarily exploratory research, and it’s used to gain understanding of people’s experiences, cultures, opinions, motivations and specific issues. As its aim is to explore a certain topic, it doesn’t involve the formulation of a hypothesis or tries to predict a certain result, and tends to be more subjective. For this reason, it can be more or less valid depending on the skill of the researcher, and it’s well suited for studies at an individual level.

Data gained through qualitative research are usually in the form of words and come from interviews, documents, focus groups and observations. The sample size is typically small, and the kind of questions it tries to answer to are the “what” and “how”. For example, a question asked in an interview aimed to get qualitative data could be “What are college student’s experiences in trying to coordinate study and social life?”

Quantitative Research’s aim, on the other hand, is to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviours and other defined variables, collecting numerical data from a larger sample population in order to generate statistics, formulate facts and uncover patterns in research. Unlike qualitative research it uses hypothesis and predictions, and collects measurable data through online and paper surveys, interviews, website interceptors and polls. It’s widely used within social sciences such as psychology, economics and marketing, answers to questions as “How much” or “How often”. For example, a question could be “What is the percentage of students who declare that they find hard to balance study and social life?”

Research methods like observations and questionnaires can provide both quantitative and qualitative information, as closed questions would gather quantitative data, while open-ended questionnaires provide qualitative information as they are descriptive in their response.

 

 

 

Printing “Blue”

Printing is the easy, conclusive last step of the creation of a publication, right? Wrong.

When last week me and my group mate Ieva started the process that transformed the digital file of our magazine “blue” in a physical reality, everything seemed to go wrong. I never, ever had this many issues coming up when working on a project, and I hope that I never will again.

It all started when we decided to change the original A3 format to a new one, slightly smaller than A4. We spent a lot of time creating a new size that we could use while maintaining the ratio, thinking that this way we could have printed on smaller format without having to remake the whole document. As we found at our own expenses later on, we were wrong.

Everything was incredibly complicated during the printing process, because of a series of factors that went from the way we needed to set the pages in order to use coptic binding, to our own lack of experience.

First of all, our binding required us to print our A4 pages double sided on A3 paper, dividing the pages in different documents that needed to be printed in different sections. Then we had to adjust the file and export in a different way for every printer we tried to use, which was the hardest and most stressful part of the whole project.

Me and Ieva had to figure out how to do it by ourselves, and when on the Monday before the deadline we went to print at 9.30 after a whole sleepless night of setting up the document, we realised that we did it wrong. We went to the digital space as soon as it opened, hoping to find a technician who could help us, but ended up missing our printing slot, which is a real tragedy one week before the deadline, when it’s nearly impossible to find a new one.

Luckily, one of my flatmates had booked to print on Wednesday and then realised that she didn’t need, so I manage to switch with her and secure us a new slot.
 Since we didn’t need to change the layout
but just to resize every page, I left the work in Ieva’s hands, who assured me that she didn’t want help and could do it by herself.
 On Tuesday night the file corrupted, so she spent half of the night trying to download a new version of the program, and the other half doing the work. Once again, we met early in the morning to finish the work and set up the document, then went upstairs to print. We had so many different issues that I can’t remember what exactly was wrong this time, but we ended up running up and down from the digital space to reprographics multiple times to fix the le and export again. We managed to print two copies, but soon realised that we made some mistakes and needed to print again.

We fixed the file making sure that everything was perfect, then on Thursday morning I went to reprographics as soon as it opened, trying to reprint the wrong pages from the self services printers. Because the Xerox and the smaller printers have a different software I didn’t manage to, and we had to export in yet another way; but the next morning we finally printed everything, included the cover we designed.

The final week of this project was probably one of the longest and most stressful ones since I joined the course; also because of the CTS essay, the DPS deadline and other factors we had little time to solve every problem, and ended up always going to sleep late
and waking up early to be at university as soon as reprographics or the digital space opened.

In conclusion it was stressful, but I’m glad that we made it, and it’s comforting to know that now that we know absolutely everything about every printer at uni and how to set files for different bindings, we’ll never have the same problems again.

Dear Mom,

How are you? You may be wondering why I’m sending you a letter, and why I’m talking to you in English.

Today is a rather cloudy Tuesday afternoon, my second day of my second year of university, and as I write I’m in a classroom on the fourteenth floor of the tower block, attending my writing as practice class. The cringy ice-breaker exercise that seems to be mandatory for the first day of every new class today consists in getting to know the person sitting next to you, and to write a letter about them.

In my case, it’s Daisy. Sitting on my left, currently writing something about me (how strange is that?), Daisy is a twenty years old girl from South East London who studies design management. I had an interesting conversation with her, that started with us talking about basic things such as our families and respective courses, and then spaced out until we ended talking about travels, the challenge of living alone, and the reason why I moved to London while she decided not to move somewhere else. It’s a topic I somehow always end up talking about, isn’t it?

From her point of view, moving in a new city and starting a new life requires a lot of courage, and she admires the people who are willing to leave their life behind to follow their dreams.

I found myself answering her that, after a while, it’s not a matter of being brave; change just becomes the norm. After living in three different countries in four years I feel as if the concept of change became part of my identity, to such an extent that I don’t see it as something extraordinary anymore, unless it’s brought up by someone else.

What surprised me about this conversation is how I formulated this idea without ever thinking about it before, as if I suddenly saw for the first time an aspect of my personality that I never noticed. Isn’t it strange, how you can discover something new about yourself by talking for fifteen minutes to someone you’ve never seen before?

P.S.: I was supposed to talk about Daisy, and ended up turning this letter into something about me. Getting back to her, she’s actually a really nice girl. I’m glad I sat next to her.

The elevator (five minutes long play)

Before the play starts, someone sets timer that will go off in five minutes.

Three students stand in front of an elevator, a guy and two girls. They don’t seem to know each other, and they’re not talking. The boy presses the button to call the elevator, and the group waits for a few moments in silence. The elevator reaches ground floor with a ding, and the trio enters it welcomed by jazzy instrumental music.

Emma: What floor are you going to?

Josephine: Thirteen

Gino: Same

Gino presses the button and the door closes. The only sound is the jazzy music in the background. The elevator stops on the next floor, and a girl walks in.

Girl 3, smiling at the guy: Hey! Gino! How are you?

Gino, smiling back: Good, you? Are you going to CTS?

The door closes as the elevator goes up

Isabella: Good! Yeah, what option did you choose?

Gino: Writing as practice

Isabella: Me too!

Gino: Good! But I guess we’re going to be late

Isabella: As always

Ding. The door opens again an another guy walks in. The conversation stops and the group waits patiently in silence, standing still.

Gino, after a few moments, breaking the silence: So… How’s your studio project going?

Isabella: Good for now. Yours?

Gino: Good

The conversation falls again, and there are 1o seconds of awkward silence before the next dialogue

Isabella, looking up: Does it always take this long?

Liam: I don’t think it’s moving

Josephine: What?

Emma, energically pressing random buttons: Yeah, it’s not working

Josephine, scared: Oh no, I hate closed spaces

Everyone steps away from Josephine.

Isabella to Gino, after half a minute of silence: Great, we’re going to be late on our first day

Gino: What a great first impression

Isabella, to everyone: Where are you guys going?

Emma: Fourteenth floor

Josephine: Me too

Liam: Same

Isabella: Really? What room?

Emma: Writing s practice

Josephine: Me too!

Liam: We’re all in the same class!

Gino: And we’re all going to be late

Liam: Unless we die here

Josephine: Don’t say that

Isabella: Hopefully not

The conversation falls once again and the awkward silence breaks in, interrupted by the music. Everyone is crossing their arm and looking at the floor.

Liam, after a full minute of silence: God, I hate this music

Isabella: I love it

Ten seconds of silence

Josephine: Today was so nice outside, wasn’t it?

Emma: Yeah, lovely

Josephine: Unlike last week

Emma: Last week was horrible

Silence.

Every once in a while someone tries to start a conversation, but each one of them drops quickly and the silence breaks in again, lasting for different ranges of time from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes. The actors will improvise and go on trying to small talk until the timer rings, moment in which the elevator doors suddenly opens and everyone runs out to reach the classroom.