The allure of statistics

One of the reasons I started J2 Research is because of our focus on qualitative methods. I have trained in both quantitative and qualitative methods and actually enjoy them both. They do different things. Quantitative methods are great for big picture understanding. For example, how many people in a country, how many of different ethnicities, religions, or ages. Or in the workplace, quantitative methods can quickly tell us how many people hired, fired, or retired. All very interesting numbers that can quickly tell us something. And this is their appeal, their quickness, their appearance of certainty, and perhaps of the aura of math and science and objectivity.

Meat (qualitative) and bones (quantitative)

But they don't always do such a good job at telling us the whys, the hows, the feelings and the thoughts of the individuals behind the statistics.  I conceptualize this as the quantitative methods provide the bones while the qualitative methods provide the meat. They provide that deeper, richer, more substantial material about a subject.