Are you the kind of person who loves a good story and can instantly think about how that experience might relate to other people? Or do you really enjoy seeing a chart or a table and thinking about how all the different numbers explain an issue?

Stories, videos, pictures, recordings all can provide valuable information -- and evaluators usually lump them together in the category "qualitative data". Charts, tables, percentages are equally valuable and usually lumped together as "quantitative data".

We usually use both types of data when helping our clients understand the outcomes or results of a program. While both presents interesting information, using them together provides us with a greater depth of understanding about what happened when someone tried a new program.

Yesterday someone asked me "How do you get someone to see the value of qualitative data?" and this was probably the tenth time I've been asked this question. Some people are just going to want hard numbers and that quantitative data is the best way to get at the truth of a situation. I don't dispute that numbers are great, but you can't guarantee that everyone is going to respond to them.

One way to make qualitative data more responsive to a number-phile is to present both types of information side-by-side. For example, you may have a chart on the left-hand side of a page, with relevant quotes on the right-hand side. (By the way, when I was checking to make sure "phile" was the right suffix to use, I found a number of great resources: the Columbia Guide to Standard American English, the suffix entry at Wikipedia, and the Vocabulary Workshop for people preparing for an American University with its extensive discussion on suffixes. There was also a nice list at http://www.michigan-proficiency-exams.com/suffix-list.html, but it didn't include "phile")

Another way to present qualitative data to those who prefer numbers is to convert stories to numbers. For example, you might do a focus group or two and learn that several people have enjoyed a specific social experiences through a program or organization. You could then design a survey for more people to find out if they similarly enjoyed the social aspect of a program, using some sort of scale. We used this approach in our work with United Jewish Fund and Council, in which we first explored some issues through focus groups and then conducted a larger community survey.

There is a related Dilbert cartoon; I am waiting for permission to publish it.