VR Qualitative Study Design

I find what Dr. Karen Myers-Bowman said about the difference between qualitative research and quantitative research is interesting. 

During the interview she mentions that in some ways qualitative research can be more honest than quantitative research results. The past few experiments that my organization has completed on the effectiveness of VR course delivery vs traditional CBT course delivery has relied heavily on quantitative research results. We are about to release a new version where our study will depend much more on a qualitative research design. 

For the past year this has bothered me and made me think that this study will be weaker than the one that used a quantitative design.  Now, based on what Dr. Karen Myers-Bowman has said, I'm interested in determining how our qualitative research design for this next iteration of VR delivery could be stronger, more honest, more transparent that our previous studies. This has made me realize that there is more power than weakness that can be built into qualitative research and I look forward to discovering more about this.

Researchers are still discovering the virtues of qualitative research. We will need to undertake a study that will need to rely far more on qualitative research than we have been used to. We will need to embrace a mixed methods study design, but I think that having that will (or can) make the study far stronger than one that relies just on one strictly focused study design. I think if anything having the variety can make things far more rich and rigorous. This should lead to less discussion of virtues and defending qualitative to looking for ways to include it as much as possible.