ABSTRACT
Objective:
to reflect on the use of the dialectical materialism for the analysis of quantitative data. The dialectical materialism is based on the understanding of the historical reality and of its contradictions, explaining social phenomena.
Method:
the concrete experience has been taken as the use of the dialectical materialism in the analysis of quantitative data from a research, whose object is the precarious work of nurses in public hospitals. From the statistical results, the contradictions between them and the literature review on the precariousness of work were identified. Then, based on the Marxist literature, other arguments were put forward in order to deepen the ascent to the explanation of the phenomenon.
Results
the information obtained with analytical statistics shows the movement, contradiction and unity of the opposites present in the responses of the analyzed variables. This fact made it possible to move away from the appearance of the numbers to understand the relationships between them and the work in nursing, as well as their contradictions.
Conclusion:
the challenge of using a qualitative method to deepen the analysis of quantitative data shows that overcoming the false dichotomy between the quantitative and qualitative approach, in this historical moment, is crucial to understanding the new problems created by the transformation of capital. After all, new problems demand new paradigms. The use of the quantitative and qualitative approach in the same research makes it possible to understand the object under study in a comprehensive way.
DESCRIPTORS:
Research; Methodology; Social theory; Qualitative analysis
