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Qualitative Vs Quantitative Data
Qualitative Vs Quantitative Data
After determining the measurement level, the next step in quantitative data
analysis is to enter the data into a spreadsheet and organize it or to “code”
in some way that will give meaning to data.
The best way of doing that is with specialized data software.
As you have the raw data, you cannot just sit and look at it. You need to
take actions to identify some patterns or to visualize what the data is
showing.
This is where descriptive statistics and inferential statistics come to play.
Step 2: Perform descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics are used to describes and summarizes basic features
of a data set. Commonly used descriptive statistics are:
Central tendency (mean, mode, and median).
Percentages.
Dispersion (range, quartiles, variance, and standard deviation)
Distribution.
Step 3: Perform inferential statistics
Inferential statistics are used to draw conclusions and trends about a large
population based on a sample taken from it. Inferential statistics study the
relationships between variables within a sample.
Inferential statistics allow you to test different hypotheses and to
generalize the gained results to the population as a whole.
Key inferential techniques, methods, and types of calculations are:
Linear regression models
Logistic regression
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA)
Statistical significance (T-Test)
Correlation analysis
Step 4: Define statistical significance
Finally, you need to look for statistical significance. Statistical significance
is captured through a ‘p-value’, which evaluate the probability that your
discovering for the data are reliable results, not a coincidence. The lower
the p-value, the more confident you can be that your findings are reliable.
As you see when it comes to quantitative data analysis, there are many
techniques and methods you can use.
The next step in our post for the difference between qualitative and
quantitative data is to see what qualitative data analysis involves.
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS: DEFINITION,
STEPS, AND TYPES
It is harder to perform Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) in comparison
with quantitative one.
QDA includes the processes and methods for analyzing data and providing
some level of understanding, explanation, and interpretation of patterns
and themes in textual data.
Qualitative data analysis is very important because it allows data sciences
and statisticians to form parameters for observing and analyzing larger sets
of data.
For example, if a company need to identify the diversity of its personnel, it
would look at qualitative data such as ethnicity and race of its employees.
For comparison, quantitative data, in this case, could be the frequency of
workers to belong to those ethnicities and races.
In general, the qualitative data analysis has the following steps:
Step 1: Become familiar with your data
As a data scientist or researcher, you have to read and re-read the data,
record detailed notes and impressions, and deciding which pieces of data
possess value.
Step 2: Define the key questions that they need to answer through the
QDA
Each QDA has specific questions, problems or topics. Find out which
questions do you need to answer.
Step 3: Reduce and code the data into themes
This means to create categories and subcategories. These categories are
very likely to get bigger as you work through your data. The list of build
themes represents your first set of codes.
Step 4: Search for patterns and connections
This step involves looking for the relative importance of data, identifying
relationships between data sets or themes, and trying to find explanations
from the available data.
Step 5: Interpret the data and draw conclusions
After you identify the themes, connections, and patterns, now you need to
assign meaning and importance to the data.
It is very likely to find out much more than you could need, so you will
have to decide what is most significant data and results.