Experimental data in science is data produced by a measurement, test method, experimental design or quasi-experimental design. In clinical research any data produced as a result of clinical trial. Experimental data may be qualitative or quantitative, each being appropriate for different investigations.
Generally speaking, qualitative data is considered more descriptive and can be subjective in comparison to having a continuous measurement scale that produces numbers. Whereas quantitative data is gathered in a manner that is normally experimentally repeatable, qualitative information is usually more closely related to phenomenal meaning and is, therefore, subject to interpretation by individual observers.
Experimental data can be reproduced by a variety of different investigators and lends itself to mathematical analysis.
Famous quotes containing the words experimental and/or data:
“Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because ‘experimental method’ used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.”
—Ian Hacking (b. 1936)
“This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)