Types of Data Collection and Levels of Measurement
There are two types of data collection and they are referred to as qualitative and quantitative. Either type of data assortments hassome advantages to it and some restraints that may apply. The type of data you gather depends on the question you want to answer and your available resources. Each may be appropriate for contrasting settings, evaluation designs, and assessing questions.Qualitative data consist of words and narratives. The analysis of qualitative data can come in many forms including highlighting key words, drawing out themes, and amplifying main concepts to get a better understanding of your statistics. Qualitative data can be conducted a focus group with Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS) employees participating in a work morale satisfaction program to understand participant perceptions and behavior. If this route is chosen then the data that we collect would most likely be narrative in form and therefore we would use qualitative techniques to analyze the transcripts looking for content and themes relevant to the work moralesatisfaction program. “Quantitative data are measurements that are recorded on a naturally occurringnumerical scale”(McClave, Benson, Sincich p 13). In other words, quantitative data is numerical information which includes an analysis that involves statistical techniques, and the type of data we collect guides the examination process. For our circumstance here with Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc., utilizing the Quantitative method would certainly be the most appropriate. The quantitative data is administered and measured in a morale satisfaction survey asking participants to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is a very positive response (you strongly agree with the statement) and 1 is a very negative choice (you do not agree at all with the statement). “The analyst’s initial objective is to summarizeand describe these data in order to extract relevant information. There are four levels of measurement.A. With the nominal level, the data are sorted into categories with no particular order tothe categories.B. The ordinal level of measurement presumes that one classification is ranked higher thananother.C. The interval level of measurement has the ranking characteristic of the ordinal levelof measurement plus the characteristic that the distance between values is a constantsize.D. The ratio level of measurement has all the characteristics of the interval level, plus thereis a 0 point and the ratio of two values is meaningful” (McClave, Benson, Sincich p 16, 42).In this case the quantitative data, as previously mentioned, would be numeric in form and we would use statistical techniques to draw conclusions about participant morale satisfaction. While implementing this strategy of Quantitative Datait can be verybeneficial because it is clear and specific, if properly analyzedthe quantitative data is accurate and reliable, it can be easily communicated with charts and graphs, and it may have many large datasets already exist that can be analyzed.

Reference
McClave, J. T., Benson, P. G., &Sincich, T. (2011). Statistics for business and economics (11thed.). Boston, MA: Pearson-Pretice Hall.