See also: Method

The quantitative methods are methods of research in connection with Nombre S or of anything of quantifiable. They are thus distinguished from the methods known as qualitative.

Counting and measurement are banal quantitative methods. The result of research is a number or a whole of numbers. One often presents them in the form of tables, of graphs…

In the majority of physical sciences and biological, the use of quantitative or qualitative methods is not disputed and are implemented advisedly. In social sciences and in particular in Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology, this use is a source of ideological controversies even of controversies. One finds in each discipline of the schools of thought which argued in favor or in discredit of the use of these methods. Holding of the use of the quantitative methods supported that it is the single means for social sciences of reaching a scientific statute; holding of the qualitative methods support on the contrary that the quantitative methods tend to veil the reality of the studied social phenomenon.

The modern tendency (and makes of it the majority tendency in the history of social sciences) is with an eclectic step. The quantitative and qualitative methods are used jointly. The use of qualitative methods is often possible to interpret the numbers provided by the quantitative methods; the use of quantitative methods makes it possible to express with precision and to make verifiable the qualitative ideas.

See also

Related articles

• Sampling

• Analysis in principal components (ACP)
• factorial Analysis of the correspondences (AFC)

External bonds

• Course of methodology under Creative license treating Commons of certain quantitative methods (AFC…, rb.ec-lille.fr).