Qualitative vs. Quantitative

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Qualitative vs. Quantitative

• By Mrs. Gilmore Mrs. Craft

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What is an observation?

• Answer
• When you observe, you become aware of something
  using one of your senses. Your five senses are
  smell, taste, sight, touch, and sound. In an
  observation you simply describe something as it
  appears.
• An observation is a statement describing a fact.

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What is an observation?

• Its evidence!!
• There are two types of observations
• Qualitative
• Quantitative

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Qualitative Observations

• Qualitative observations describe what we
  observe.
• Qualitative quality (describes)
• These observations use adjectives to describe
  something.
• Example The flower has white petals.
• Example Mr. M has blue eyes.

5
Quantitative Measurements

• Quantitative observations measure what we
  observe.
• Quantitative quantity (measures)
• These observations use numbers to measure
  something in a quantitative way.
• Example The flower has seven petals.
• Example Mr. M has two eyes.

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Left side - Observation

• On the left side, record 5 observations about
  your science classroom.
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.

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Left side

• Label your observations as qualitative or
  quantitative.
• Which observations do you feel would be more
  useful to describe this room to someone. Why?

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Which is better?

• Both types are valuable in science. In
  experiments, though, quantitative observations
  can be precisely and objectively compared.
• Qualitative The road is long. (describes)
• Quantitative The road is 5 km long. (measures)

9
Which is better?

• For example, someone might say that a dead fish
  is smelly.
• It is hard to know just how smelly the fish is.
• Scientist, can however, make this more
  quantitative, by using a rating system.
• If you rate the smelliness on a scale of 1-5,
  you now can now compare values and graph this
  information.