Enhance Understanding of a More Generalized Set

¶ … enhance understanding of a more generalized set of research questions that deal with environments, interactions and relationships. Indeed, qualitative research is often used to form the hypothesis and narrow the question prior to studying the data quantitatively. For example, researchers might use a focus group might be to get an overall "feel" of a response to a product or event. The group makes statements, judgments, remarks, and gives opinion -- all which are qualitative. The researcher then takes the qualitative data and uses it to form additional hypotheses and to develop a more quantitative approach to the problem. Typically, quantitative research uses larger samples that can be statistically analyzed and verified; while qualitative research uses smaller samples that may be used to generalize research (Creswell, 2003). Useful, then, is having a basic approach or idea that one wants to study. Then, one might use qualitative research to further structure and enhance the ideas of this theoretical approach, as well as focus on additional means to explore and debate. Once this is accomplished, and then the research can be moved forward with the aid of experimental design, which should take into consideration not only the hypothesis under concern, but the way the data may prove or disprove the original hypothesis. The design of the experiment is especially important in that it allows a more robust and deeper manner of exploration in an unbiased manner. It is also important that this experiment be reproducible by others, and hold true over time and conditions (Hatton, 1996).

This approach to qualitative study bodes well for our chosen research articles in that qualitative tools are used in tandem with quantitative efforts to find a more robust and useful theoretical paradigm from which to work. The modeling process that is endemic to qualitative study (who, what, when, where, why, how) then, acts as a sort of introductory outline for further quantitative study in the subject matter.

Parsons, et.al. (2008) and Valovich, et.al. (2008) are a group of researchers that tackle the question surrounding using a disablement model for athletic training and the resultant expectations and conclusions made based on defining clinical outcomes as an important, if not vital, portion of the research itself. For both studies, the idea of ongoing improvement of patient care becomes the central focus for all health professions, and posit that there are strategic and tactical goals that must act in juxtaposition in order to form appropriate clinical outcomes.

Central to the design of both studies is an overview of clinical outcomes assessment and discussion of the way outcomes measure is used to make decisions in healthcare, particularly in the injury-prone athlete. The former paradigm forms the major portion of the qualitative portion, while the later becomes quantitative measurement.