qualitative

2 antonyms for qualitative — opposites grouped by meaning.

Adjective — Concerned with the nature, character or quality of something rather than with amounts that can be counted or measured.

Synonyms by Meaning

1. adjective

Concerned with the nature, character or quality of something rather than with amounts that can be counted or measured.

“The report found a qualitative improvement in care that the waiting-time figures never captured.”

descriptive interpretive non-numerical

Opposites

quantitative numerical

2. adjective technical

Of research: based on interviews, observation, open-ended responses and other non-numerical evidence, analysed for themes and meaning.

“We ran a qualitative study with thirty in-depth interviews.”

ethnographic exploratory

Opposites

quantitative

Antonyms

quantitative numerical

How to use qualitative

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

qualitative research qualitative data qualitative analysis qualitative difference

Standard in academic, market-research and business writing.

Etymology

From Latin qualitas 'quality', formed from qualis 'of what kind'.

Full origin of qualitative →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative?

Quantitative deals with how much or how many, producing numbers you can count, measure and run statistics on. Qualitative deals with what something is like, producing words, images and descriptions analysed for meaning. Most serious research programmes use both, because numbers show the pattern and qualitative work explains why it exists.

What are examples of qualitative data?

Interview transcripts, focus-group recordings, open-ended survey answers, field notes, diary entries, photographs and product reviews. Anything recorded as description rather than as a value on a scale.

Can qualitative research be objective?

It can be systematic and rigorous — with sampling logic, coding frameworks and checks between coders — but it does not claim the statistical generalisability of quantitative work. Its strength is depth and explanation rather than measurement across a population.

People also searched

numerical descriptive exploratory quantitative

Nearby words

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