qualitative v quantitative data

• qualitative data

  expressed in words and are non- numerical. take form of a written description or written account of what a researcher saw in an observation.
• quantitative data

  results that can be counted, usually given as numbers.
• a03- quantitative

  • answers don't tend to represent real life, low ecological validity.
  • simple to analyse as it takes the form of a statistic.
• a03- qualitative

  • greater external validity as it provides more insight into participants.
  • difficult to analyse due to subjective nature.
  • can lead to experimenter bias in analysis.
• primary data

  data that has been obtained first hand by the researcher.
• secondary data

  information that has already been collected by someone else so pre-dates the current research project.
• meta-analysis

  combining results from a number of studies on a particular topic to provide an overall view.
• tables

  measurements collected in a research study are referred to as 'raw data'. raw data is then converted to descriptive statistics.
• bar chart

  a graph used to represent the frequency of the data, bar charts are used when data is divided into characteristics.
• histogram

  frequency distribution in which the number of scores in each category of continuous data are represented by columns.