Log-in | Contact Jeff | Email Updates
 
Quantitative and Categorical Data
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
 Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio
Fundamentals of Statistics 1: Basic Concepts :: Discrete and Continuous
If you have quantitative data, like time to complete a task or number of questions correct on a quiz, then the data can be either continuous or discrete. Discrete data have finite values, or buckets. You can count them. Continuous data technically have an infinite number of steps, which form a continuum.  The number of questions correct would be discrete--there are a finite and countable number of questions. Time to complete a task is continuous since it could take 178.8977687 seconds. Time forms an interval from 0 to infinity. You can usually tell the difference between discrete and continuous data because discrete usually can be preceded by "number of...". Here are some examples of discrete and continuous data.
 

Photo By: rocksee
Discrete:
  1. Number of children in a household
  2. Number of languages a person speaks
  3. Number of people sleeping in stats class
 

Photo By: FacemePLS
Continuous:
  1. Height of children
  2. Weight of cars
  3. Time to wake up in the morning
  4. Speed of the train




 
Quantitative and Categorical Data
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
 Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio

How well did you understand this lesson?

Avg. Rating 8.13 (165)

Not at all    Neutral    Extremely
012345678910

What didn't make sense?

Name
Email Not Published
Comment
 To prevent comment spam, please answer the following question before submitting (tags not permitted) :
What is 5 + 4: (enter the number)
October 31, 2011 | Usman Ibrahim wrote:
Nice indeed.
 
October 31, 2011 | Usman Ibrahim wrote:
Nice indeed.