Audience Key Terms

Qualitative Data - Qualitative methods are ways of collecting data which are concerned with describing meaning, rather than with drawing statistical inferences. What qualitative methods (e.g. case studies and interviews) lose on reliability they gain in terms of validity.  They provide a more in depth and rich description.

Quantitative Data - Quantitative methods have come under considerable criticism.  In modern research, most psychologists tend to adopt a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, which allow statistically reliable information obtained from numerical measurement to be backed up by and enriched by information about the research participants' explanations.

Demographic Data -  Demographic data is current statistical characteristics of a population.

Psychographic Data - Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.