If your question is about what happens or why something happens, you are asking a qualitative question and need a qualitative method. If you want to know how much something happens, or how many of something there are, you need a quantitative method.

Research is simply systematic inquiry.

Think of a question
Gather evidence
Consider what it means
Repeat until sufficient confidence is reached

This is the basic process no matter what method you are using. It could take 5 minutes or 5 years. The more substantial the decision, the greater the standard of confidence required.