A Study of Babylon University's TEFL Postgraduate Candidates and Teaching Staff's Perspectives on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Problems, Challenges and Prospective

This paper investigated the perspectives of Iraqi TEFL postgraduate candidates specializing in teaching English as a foreign language, as well as the professors who were enrolled in and instructed in a course on research methodology (including quantitative, and qualitative approaches) concerning different types of research methodologies. Moreover, the researcher aimed to investigate the participants' perspectives towards a qualitative or quantitative research approach for conducting their thesis. In this study, 10 TEFL postgraduate candidates and 10 teaching staff from University of Babil/ Faculty of Basic Education were chosen by convenience and purposive sampling. Researcher created a semi-structured interview for them. According to Strauss and Corbin's (1996) grounded theory approach to qualitative content analysis, both groups of participants exhibited positive views regarding MMR. Participants preferred qualitative approaches over quantitative approaches for their thesis. Qualitative research and MMR can be as effective as quantitative research, depending on the study's objective and subject being researched.