Good research starts before the data collection: with a clearly framed question and a method chosen to answer it, not the other way around. I work across both quantitative and qualitative approaches, selecting the design that fits the question rather than defaulting to a favorite tool.
In practice
- Framing research questions and hypotheses before choosing a method
- Designing protocols that hold up to scrutiny from stakeholders and senior researchers
- Combining quantitative and qualitative data where a single lens isn't enough
This is the foundation underneath everything else I do, from statistical analysis to literature review. Read more in my article on quantitative vs. qualitative research.