In retrospect, Theme 4 - And for any given choice, quality over quantity

Another seminar, another topic and another hugh chunk of my self-glorified knowledge-base properly smashed.

Ohh, and as if that wasn't enough, once again I failed to properly answer all the questions. I did however, managed to give a somewhat summarized version of the paper I had read.


So, while my previous post wasn't a complete failure, I have to admit that I sorely missed the mark.


Fortunately for me, this situation was somewhat saved due to the excellent seminar I attended, where I was able to discuss the questions I had missed with my more thorough classmates. So what did I learn this time around?

Well to start of, I learned that both kinds of studies are needed in order to come up with any meaningful results once the research reaches a certain size. I also learned that qualitative studies can be statistical in nature (something I thought was anathema to that sort of research). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I was reminded that any research, apart from the scrutiny of its methods, is entirely reliant on which question it attempts to answer. In other words, how you frame the question at hand, in any given study, will drastically affect the worth of your results.

While the above may seem obvious to some, it is still very much one of those things you tend to, "not think" about, and so a reminder is always useful to sort of keep you on track.