Qualitative & Quantitative Data

Tuesday 16th April ‘24

What are the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative data?

• Richness of data.

• Broader in scope.

• Participants can fully report their thoughts, feelings and opinions.

• Greater external validity.

• Hard to identidy patterns.

• Very hard to summarise in line with statistics.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative data?

• Simple to analyse.

• Clear comparisons betweengroups can be drawn.

• Numerical - more objective.

• Less open to bias.

• Narrower in meaning.

• May fail to represent real life.