Q+q ≈

Related Reading
Reflection: March For Our Lives
The Untold Story 

As I close my eyes and drift away to a land where there is love, health, peace, and blessings. I wanted to take the time to think and reflect. 
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     The truth is that I was taking the time to think upon my previous thoughts, particularly with regards to our human experiences, our stories, and how we decide to share these. I wrote about how the way we share stories will also affect how they are perceived. Even though my thoughts were geared towards the March For Our Lives, they can also be thought about from a scientific point of view. When we hear stories, or experiences that are about a particular subject, we can call this a form of qualitative data, because people are sharing data about their experience about the same situation or a life event. We call it qualitative when we measure, collect information via surveys, interviews or other methods of research. But the query arises when we look up research about the subject / topic from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Sometimes numbers do not match with the descriptors. But many researchers actually say that they prefer quantitive data, because it gives a quick snapshot about the subject area, and what they are interested in. With qualitative data it will be the opposite, as we have to sift through, read, and decipher for ourselves, but is this really the case? 

     I think that there is much more potential for qualitative data, not to say that quantitative is not useful, because it is. Qualitative data has not been put at the forefront particularly in the field of science as it is more costly, more time / human capital investments, as well as the difficulty to be able to quantify qualitative data. But what if we were able to collect qualitative data, sort through this, and assign numerical or alphabetical groupings to the data sets? Would we be able to produce a clearer picture from the data that was collected? 

     My questioning stems directly from the fact that there are discrepancies between quantitative and qualitative studies about the same research topic / subject. These discrepancies make us wonder about the accuracy of the data that is collected. Whilst research methods are selected for the best possible fit, the very methods that are selected also impact the results that are retrieved from the studies. There is an emphasis upon scientific numerical research, quantitative data, but qualitative data such as the stories we share, tell, could also tell a very different story in comparison with a numerical result. The formula as follows is written to reflect an ideal that we should strive for, where a combination of quantitative and qualitative data is approximately equal to each other. 

Q+q ≈

My thoughts to share with love & Kindness! :)

Notes: These thoughts were originally hand-written on March 28th, 2018.
Image 1 - Web Link
Image 2 - Personal Photograph