What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative observations?

Question

Give an example of each one

Best answer gets 10 points!!!

Answer 1

Quantitative are measurable stuff such as: the height, the weight, the salary...

Qualitative are traits or qualities such as: the color of the eyes, the color of the hair, the s*x of a person...

Answer 2

Qualitative observations are observations that indicate the quality of the subject, and quantitative observations are observations that indicate the quantity of the subject.  Specifically, a quantitative observation is a numerical observation, like "There are ten people waiting in the first line," or "5.4 seconds elapsed from the time I released the block to the time it reached the bottom of the slope."  Quantitative observations are measurable and are generally more defensible.  Qualitative observations are observations that are not quantitative, like "The circle is red" or "the lab rat seemed happier after eating the substance."

Qualitative observations are not quite as good for scientific purposes, since they generally are not very precise or measurable.  However, they can sometimes be changed to be more quantitative.  For example, the qualitative observation "the circle is red" can be changed to the quantitative, "The most powerful segment of the light from a fluorescent lamp reflected from the circle had a wavelength of 680 nanometers."  Or "the lab rat seemed happier" can be changed to something more like "the rat spent 87 seconds on the 'play' equipment within 10 minutes of eating the substance."

I recommend using quantitative observations whenever possible, and to use qualitative observations only when your laboratory equipment is not precise enough to allow for a good measurement, the observation is important to the nature of the experiment, and it is a relatively obvious observation, such that extreme precision is not required.

Answer 3

Basically qualitative observations are about the properties of what is being observed that do not use numerical units. Quantitative observations are those that do use measurements.

Ex: and apple:

Qualitative: green, fresh smelling, crisp

Quantitative: 103 cc's in volume, 115 grams in weight.

Here's a brief guide on qualitative vs quantitative observations: http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/...