QUALITATIVE AND/OR QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS – APPLYING SPECIFICITIES

Abstract

Although methodologists noted long time ago that the combination of qualitative and quantitativemethods is the most preferred model of research, it seems that the content of analysis has notreached that level yet. Prior to a debate on the issue of qualitative and/or quantitative contentanalysis, the question is why the content analysis has hardly ever been used in research in oursociology. Scarce literature in Serbian language on this method, and even fewer studies, are bothindicators and one of the causes why this method hasn’t been given the importance it deserves.Analysis of the previous discussions indicates lack of systematic approach to implementation,which is achieved primarily by specifying the phases of research. The very attempts to systemizethe phases of the research contribute to greater systematization of this method. In addition to thequestions about the stages of research, there is the question of differences in applying qualitativeand quantitative analysis, i.e. the difficulties that arise in their application.

The main objective of this paper is to indicate the specificities of applying these two forms ofcontent analysis and the need for their combining in order to obtain data of better quality andprecision. Also, an equally important objective is to consider the specificities of applying content analysis methods, both qualitative and quantitative, which should bring this method much closerto researchers and highlight the simplicity of its implementation.