partisan1. 1  an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance. 2  Military. a member of a party of light or irregular troops engaged in harassing an enemy, especially a member of a guerrilla band engaged in fighting or sabotage against an occupying army.
When it comes to data analysis, some believe that statistical techniques are only applicable for quantitative data. This is not so. There are many statistical techniques that can be applied to qualitative data, such as ratings scales, that has been generated by a quantitative research approach.
The specificity of quantitative research lies in the next part of the defini-. tion. In quantitative research, we collect numerical data. This is closely con-. nected to the final part of the definition: analysis using mathematically. 1. 8725 AR.qxd 25/08/2010 16:36 Page 1. based methods. In order to be able to use mathematically based methods, our data have to be in numerical form.