ABSTRACT
Quantitative analysis deals with data in the form of numbers and uses mathematical operations to investigate their properties. The levels of measurement used in the collection of the data i.e. nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio, are an important factor in choosing the type of analysis that is applicable, as is the numbers of cases involved. Statistics is the name given to this type of analysis, and is defined in this sense as follows:
Most surveys result in quantitative data, e.g. numbers of people who believed this or that, how many children of what age do which sports, levels of family income, etc. However, not all quantitative data originate from surveys. For example, content analysis is a specific method
of examining records of all kinds (e.g. documents or publications, radio and TV programmes, films, etc.) that entails counting.
