Qualitative

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Qualitative

The term qualitative is used to describe certain types of information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
. Qualitative data
DATA

Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa is a multinational Non-governmental organization founded in January 2002 in London by U2's Bono along with Robert Sargent Shriver III and activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign....
are described in terms of quality
Quality

Quality may refer to:Concepts:* Quality * Quality , an attribute or a property* Quality , which has separate meanings in thermodynamics and harmonics...
(that is, 'informal' or relative characteristics such as warmth and flavour). This is the converse of quantitative

Quantitative

A quantitative attribute is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measurement. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a Unit of measurement, multiplied by a number....
, which more precisely describes data in terms of quantity
Quantity

Quantity is a kind of property which exists as magnitude or multitude. It is among the basic classes of things along with Quality , substance, change, and relation....
and often using a numerical figure to represent something in a statement.

Quantitative data falls into two broad categories: Discrete (or attribute) data and Continuous (or variable) data.

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Encyclopedia

The term qualitative is used to describe certain types of information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
. Qualitative data
DATA

Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa is a multinational Non-governmental organization founded in January 2002 in London by U2's Bono along with Robert Sargent Shriver III and activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign....
are described in terms of quality
Quality

Quality may refer to:Concepts:* Quality * Quality , an attribute or a property* Quality , which has separate meanings in thermodynamics and harmonics...
(that is, 'informal' or relative characteristics such as warmth and flavour). This is the converse of quantitative
Quantitative

A quantitative attribute is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measurement. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a Unit of measurement, multiplied by a number....
, which more precisely describes data in terms of quantity
Quantity

Quantity is a kind of property which exists as magnitude or multitude. It is among the basic classes of things along with Quality , substance, change, and relation....
and often using a numerical figure to represent something in a statement.

Quantitative data falls into two broad categories: Discrete (or attribute) data and Continuous (or variable) data. Discrete data generally falls into three categories: Category data (eg. car type), Bi-nomial data (eg. pass/fail), and Count / Poisson data (eg. # of hairs on your head).

Qualitative data are generally (but not always) of less value to scientific research
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
than quantitative data, due to their subjective
Subject (philosophy)

In philosophy, a subject is a being which has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed....
and intangible nature.

It is possible to approximate quantitative data from qualitative data - for instance, asking people to rate their perception of a sensation on a Likert scale
Likert scale

A Likert scale is a psychometrics scale commonly used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement....
.

Examples
A quantitative way to report a particular room temperature would be "the temperature in this room is 23 degrees Celsius
Celsius

Celsius is a temperature scale that is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death....
."

A qualitative way to report room temperature would be to say "this room is warmer than it is outside".

A quantitative way to describe the tree would be to say "The tree is 30 feet tall."

A qualitative way to describe a tree would be to say "the tree is taller than the building."

See also
Level of measurement
Level of measurement

The "levels of measurement" is an expression which typically refers to the theory of scale types developed by the Harvard psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens....