BizSugar.com › Technology › Structure: A Better Way of Thinking about Data

There are many different ways to classify data, but one classification that I hear frequently is “quantitative” versus “qualitative”. This can be a useful classification, at least in the context of determining what statistical analyses are appropriate for specific variables in the data. However, those classifications are being applied more and more broadly, as shorthand for other attributes of datasets. Quantitative is often used to mean “data collected by computers”, and is assumed to be consistent, objective, and reductive; qualitative is often used to mean “data collected by humans” and is assumed to be inconsistent, subjective, and rich.