Methodological Rorschach Tests Contrasting Interpretations in Qualitative and Quantitative Research

In A Tale of Two Cultures, we propose that the qualitative and quantitative research traditions are associated with distinctive procedures and practices as well as contrasting values, beliefs, and norms—that is, they are distinct cultures. Like most cultures, they are loosely integrated, internally contested, and ever changing. Nevertheless, they feature many important and readily identifiable differences. In the 14 chapters of the book, we explore these differences through a series of short (i.e., about 10–12 pages) essays that address specific methodological topics.
In this brief essay, we can provide only some appetizers to give a taste of the longer main course, which is the book itself. We focus here on two differences that cut across many of the chapters and that suggest why a unified approach to social science research is difficult to achieve. First, we argue that logic and set theory lie, implicitly or explicitly, at the core of qualitative methods: logic is the mathematics of qualitative methodology. By contrast, probability and statistics are at the core of quantitative methods.