Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-Methods Research

I followed with great interest the discussion about descriptive versus hypothesis-driven research (A. Casadevall and F. C. Fang, Microbe, December 2008, p. 552– 553, and May 2009, p. 207; J. L. Slonczewski and E. S. Kaneshiro, Microbe, February 2009, p. 50). The authors talked about various ways of defining “descriptive research” and evaluated its value to science.