Health-Related Articles on the Same

¶ … health-related articles on the same subject with the difference being that one must be quantitative only in terms of research methodology and the other is either mix-method or qualitative only. The topic for both articles relates to the healthiness and overall content of breakfast cereals. The Berketova study is mixed method while the McKevith study is quantitative only. The author of this response, per the assignment, will consider the field of the studies, will analyze the two different overall research approaches of the two studies, reflect on the overall value of both quantitative and qualitative research methods, will contrast the types of information that are present in both articles and methods, formulate a response to the claim that qualitative research is not real science and so forth.

Different Methods for Same Research Topic

One might say that only the quantitative dimension of research is "real science" but this is really not true. The main reason for this is that not everything that can be research and culled can be done so in a numbers-only standpoint. One sterling example is mental health and even cereal eating. Mental health is not quantitative only because it is clear that using a strictly scientific approach in mental health is not going to get all of the answers all of the time and qualitative research methods have to be used to draw out the quantitative figures. Cereal consumption is no different in that how healthy a cereal is has no bearing on whether people can or will actually eat it and if no one will eat it, then researching it or touting its nutritional content is rather pointless.

For cereal research to truly be worthwhile, assessing what is actually being eaten while at the same time looking at this cereal's content is what is relevant. Assessing why some people eat whatever cereals has to be part of the research at some point, as noted above, or the quantitative angle is largely pointless because one will usually feed the other. In other words, it's all well and good for McKevith to focus only on the hard figures (fiber content, what makes up each cereal, etc.) but Berketova is focusing on both parts of the research equation (everything McKevith looked at but also inclusive of consumer opinion, why consumers choose one cereal over another, personal opinions, etc.) and thus this research will be more illuminating if done correctly since the research addresses the hard figures as well as the insights that statistics and figures cannot provide.

Using qualitative only (which Berketova did NOT do) would be unwise for anything that has relevant statistical information to gain. As such, it is wise that Berketova included both dimensions. McKevith did quantative only which is fine if assessing the "what"…but again, it's not the least bit adept at answering any "why" questions about who is consuming what and "why."