Updated March 3, 2023
Introduction to Qualitative Data
The following article provides an outline for Types of Qualitative Data. The data that is approximate, accurate, characterize and satisfies the need of the requirement is called qualitative data. It can be recorded and observed by various approaches. The qualitative data can be composed of one to one interviews, observations, and focus groups. In statistics, the qualitative data can be called as categorical data. It can be organized based on the properties and attributes of an object or circumstance. Qualitative data is significant in deciding the correct frequency of characteristics and traits and it can also be the perspective and emotions of the people how they reacted to different scenarios.
Different Types of Qualitative Data
The qualitative data can be collected through deductive and inductive approaches by arranging, organizing, setting a code and validating the collected qualitative data and finally it is analyzed by set to give an appropriate solution to the problem.
The qualitative data can be broadly divided into Nominal Data and Ordinal Data.
1. Nominal Data
The classification of unqualified variables that don’t hold any measurable value in statistics is called nominal data which is referred to as named or labeled data. It is used to name or label the variables without defining any quantitative value. It may not be true in a few instances where the nominal data holds a quantitative value. The quantitative values don’t possess any true numeric characteristics like irregular intervals, false ratio data.
The nominal value cannot be computed with general mathematical operators. For instance, a researcher is needed to generate a database of the contact numbers and location of few numbers of people. A survey is connected is evaluated using an open-ended closed questionnaire. It is one of the optimal methods to collect qualitative data. The code of the country will be a closed input option when the phone number is not locked.
The nominal data can be represented by a bar chart and a pie chart. It can be collected from voting methods. The recurrent of votes is measured for every candidate is made the winner. This is termed as a mode in statistical terms. The database is collected from immigrants which will be helpful to estimate the countries, gender, age, races, classes to extract the tourism report or some international business meets happening in a nation.
The qualitative data collected by means of observation. This observation is made by the researcher to gather only the relevant and knowledgeable data which can be applied in his real-time theory. This type of data can be carried with some advanced technology for future purposes. The qualitative data can be in any form of videos, audios, photographs or documentation.
The sort of qualitative data can be obtained from repeatedly analyzing the source for an extended period of time. It is an observational method which is carried for a few years and in some exceptional cases, it can extend to decades. The focus of this qualitative data is to explore the correlation by the empirical analysis of subjects with common attributes. The data can be collected by an in-depth research of different surveys. The originality of this data is used to explore the simple and complex content in a subject. It can be used to retrieve more inferences and give many dimensions from a common topic.
2. Ordinal Data
It is an organization of ordinal variables. It is a method of qualitative data collection whereas the variables are nature, ordered sorts and the distance between the categories is unknown. For instance, ordinal data is collected when the client gives the inputs as his satisfaction rate on the variable scale with options of satisfied, dissatisfied or indifferent. It is a collection of ordinal variables. The gathered data will be similar to a questionnaire format of the Likert scale. Such types of primary highlights are the rating of experience of working or service as very great, great, bad or very bad. Other ordinal data includes the priority of a software or bug or robust of a runner or taste of food and so on which can be differentiated to critical, high, medium or low.
One to one interviews can be used as a common instrument as a personal approach where the interview of the study collects the information directly from the person on one to one basis. It can be in the form of conversational, informal and unstructured. The questions are spontaneous, open-ended questions, which lets the flow of interview to dictate the next questions to be asked. Focus groups are in the form of group discussion which is conducted with a limit of six to ten people.
Depending on the sorted data, the member of the group may have similar ideas. An investigator tracks the data of the runner and chooses the athlete who has sufficient skill to win the race. Similarly, the concept can be applied in all domains.
The maintaining of the record is already available and reliable with a data source that can be applied in future research. This type of qualitative data is similar to the library which can have reference to gather related data and gain knowledge on it. Ordinal data is scalar to organize it and doesn’t have a calibrated measurement. It is analyzed by mode, median distribution, and frequency. Here the nominal data is organized with mode whereas ordinal data uses both median and mode.
The qualitative data gives a depth of knowledge and details to record emotions. It gives a space for the open questionnaire to spark fresh conversations. The expansion of researchers knowledge gives the scope for the invention of future technologies. The behavioral difference in individuals and their attitude towards certain scenarios paved a way to create qualitative data which became later a methodology in the field of data mining, big data, deep learning techniques, and machine learning. Since the qualitative data is input for many resources, such data should be processed in detail to view its insight which helps in giving the best results for unpredictable problems.
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