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The term “quantitative” refers to data or information that can be enumerated. Quantitative information is gathered to summarize the experience of large groups of people, make comparisons between groups, and track changes among them over time. The number of children malnourished or immunized is quantitative data because it is expressed through numbers.
Suggested sources of quantitative information are outlined in table 4 below.
Qualitative, on the other hand, refers to conditions or information that can at most be only partially enumerated. For example, descriptions of beliefs and cultural practices or parental feeding practices represent qualitative information.
It is often the case that in standardizing measures by quantifying them, much of the richness and uniqueness of the individual’s experience is lost. For example, we can say how many children have completed the third grade, but we cannot capture in numbers the importance of writing their name or reading a book. Qualitative methods capture the contextual setting associated with information or situations affecting people’s lives. Quantitative methods are generally noncontextual, in that they attempt to abstract from the particularities of people to keep only a comparable, measurable core of information.
Qualitative information is derived mainly from:
- Indepth interviews with key individuals;
- Focus group discussions (that are semistructured) with small groups of individuals;
- Casual meetings with communities of interest;
- Participant observation, to learn about what people do—how and why;
- Site visits to see the context in which they do it and to collect observations;
- Reviews of public records, archives and official transcripts to see what was said and how it was said;
- Review of other documents, such as newspapers;
- Critical incident questionnaires;
- Snowball interviews, where the first interview leads to a second, more focused interview with another individual.
Furthermore, qualitative information often takes the form of subjective, interpretive or symbolic expressions of meaning in people’s lives, and thus is difficult to standardize. How one interprets this information evolves through the process of collection of information. The investigator uses not only what is said, but the context and manner in which it is said and the other information one picks up from people’s behaviour. The subjective nature of this process of interpretation makes it difficult to measure or control bias in the collection of information or to test the accuracy of one’s interpretation. Qualitative information is essential for developing useful causal models. Key informants from the social programmes or data collection agencies already have a detailed sense of which variables are related and the nature of the influence of one on another.
Because qualitative methods involve more indepth observation, they can elicit more participation by interviewees than quantitative approaches. This is key in facilitating the identification of useful recommendations in study results and in strengthening their implementation.
The use of qualitative methods in identifying the character of the relationships of one variable in the chain of causation to the next is thus particularly relevant in sanctionsrelated research. Not all sanctions are implemented in the same way or with the same intensity. Quantitative data can provide information on when sanctions were implemented, and even on “hard” statistics such as the dollar value of imported medicines. But qualitative information fills in missing links that are necessary in understanding humanitarian outcomes.
The best assessments combine quantitative indicators with qualitative information to better understand how available inputs lead to specific outcomes. Such a combination greatly assists in elucidating the chain of events leading to humanitarian damage, resilience, and mitigating and modifying factors (see section 3.4). In practice there is little experience in combining information from quantitative and qualitative sources to create a more convincing assessment of social conditions.
In this way, qualitative information proves a unique dimension for understanding the efficiency of implementation of sanctions or humanitarian protection activities.
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