Quantity is only one of the qualities

Donald deB. Beaver ()
Additional contact information
Donald deB. Beaver: Williams College

Scientometrics, 2012, vol. 93, issue 1, No 5, 33-39

Abstract: Abstract As our fields have become more sophisticated, complex, and specialized, we deal with ever larger masses of data, and our quantitative results have become more detailed and esoteric, and difficult to interpret. Because our methods are predominantly quantitative, we tend to overlook or underemphasize the qualitative judgments that enter at every stage of our work, and to forget that quantity is only one of the qualities. As in our world today, where we face a flood of factoids and quantitative data stripped of context, and struggle to evaluate it, to give it meaning, and make it into information, so ought we qualitatively to acknowledge and contextualize our research results, not only to make them more relevant, meaningful, and useful to the larger world, but to give our work greater impact and value.

Keywords: Quantitative methodology; Qualitative meaning; Contextualization; Interpretation; Holism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-012-0657-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:93:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-012-0657-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0657-1

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().