[Qualitative versus quantitative research methods: paradigmatic alternatives--an issue in nursing?]

This discussion of alternative methodologies arises from research conducted in 1994 about the development and determinants of satisfaction in basic nursing education. In this project qualitative approaches were used to allow a comparison of the results with those achieved by standardised quantitative investigations. Besides the fact that satisfaction in basic nursing education has so far been investigated predominantly with quantitative methods which limit the responses of the subjects from the outset, critics in the field of occupational research have pointed to the necessity of using qualitative methods in investigating job satisfaction. Following a historical review of the methodological debate in the social sciences, a presentation of fundamental aspects and criteria of quantitative and qualitative methods and a detailed description of the research strategy used in the above project, a comparison of the results will attempt to answer the research question.