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A Parameter and a Statistic
Home What is Statistics? A Population and Sample A Parameter and a Statistic Quantitative and Categorical Data Discrete and Continuous Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio Describing the Center of Data Describing the Variability of Data The Standard Deviation and Coefficient of Variation The Empirical Rule Percentiles and The Five-Number SummaryView All Tutorials
 Discrete and Continuous
Fundamentals of Statistics 1: Basic Concepts :: Quantitative and Categorical Data
As you'd probably guess, statistics involve using numbers from data. Not all data are the same and knowing what type of data we're dealing with will guide us through what we can do with it. The two basic divisions of data are qualitative or categorical data and quantitative or numeric data.



For example, typing speed is quantitative. Favorite colors are qualitative/categorical. Some more examples are :
 
Quantitative:
  1. Weight in pounds
  2. Length in inches
  3. Time in seconds
  4. Number of questions correct on a quiz
 
Categorical
  1. Model of car
  2. Gender
  3. Yes or No
  4. Pass or Fail

Just because you have a number, doesn't necessarily make it quantitative. For example, zip codes, phone numbers and bank-accounts are numeric, but it doesn't make much sense to find the average phone number or median zip-code. These are examples of numbers applied to categorical data.

 
A Parameter and a Statistic
Home What is Statistics? A Population and Sample A Parameter and a Statistic Quantitative and Categorical Data Discrete and Continuous Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio Describing the Center of Data Describing the Variability of Data The Standard Deviation and Coefficient of Variation The Empirical Rule Percentiles and The Five-Number SummaryView All Tutorials
 Discrete and Continuous

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