Examples of quantitative variables include height and weight, while examples of qualitative variables include hair color, religion and gender. Quantitative variables are often represented in units of measurement, and qualitative variables are represented in non-numerical terms.
The difference between qualitative and quantitative variables lies in the way each are measured. Qualitative variables have no inherent order to them while quantitative variables are numbers that can be naturally ordered. Qualitative variables are often referred to as categorical variables because they can be placed into categories, such as male or female. According to OnlineStatBook, these variables can be ordinal, interval or ratio variables.
