VARIABLES AND DATA

TYPES OF VARIABLES

•Qualitative
•Quantitative
 QUALITATIVE VARIABLES
• The characteristic being studied is nonnumeric.

Examples:
• Gender
• religious affiliation
• type of automobile owned
• state of birth
• eye color
 QUANTITATIVE VARIABLES
• Information is reported numerically.

Examples:
• balance in your checking account
• minutes remaining in class
• or number of children in a family
 CLASSIFICATION OF QUANTITATIVE
VARIABLE
• Discrete
• Continuous
 DISCRETE
can only assume certain values and there are usually “gaps”
between values.

Examples:
• the number of bedrooms in a house
• the number of hammers sold at the local Home Depot
(1,2,3,…,etc)
 CONTINUOUS
can assume any value within a specified range.

Examples:
• the pressure in a tire
• the weight of a pork chop
• the height of students in a class.
 Variable

Qualitative Quantitative

Discrete Continuous
 DETERMINE WHETHER THE DATA ARE
QUALITATIVE OR QUANTITATIVE
1. the colors of automobiles on a used car lot
2. the number of seats in a movie theater
3. a list of house numbers on your street
4. sexual preference of students in a class
5. the ages of a sample of 350 employees of a large hospital
 CLASSIFY EACH VARIABLE AS
DISCRETE OR CONTINUOUS
1. The number of people who buy a coffee from Starbucks
today.
2. The volume of water (in cubic feet) of each of the Great
Lakes.
3. The number of drones Amazon.com wants to have delivering
orders by 2020.
4. The amount of time it takes to answer this question.
5. The number of nuclear power plants in the world.
 LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
• Nominal
• Ordinal
• Interval
• Ratio
 NOMINAL LEVEL
• data that is classified into categories and cannot be arranged in
any particular order
• use numbers for the purpose of identifying name or
membership in a group or category
• all qualitative variables are measured in nominal scale
 EXAMPLE OF NOMINAL LEVEL
• eye color
• gender
• religious affiliation
• zip codes
• tax identification numbers (TIN)
• cellphone numbers
 ORDINAL LEVEL
• involves data arranged in some order, but the differences
between data values cannot be determined or are meaningless
• connote ranking or inequalities
 EXAMPLE OF ORDINAL LEVEL
• social class
• grades (A, B, C, D, F)
• during a taste test of 4 soft drinks
o Mellow Yellow was ranked number 1
o Sprite number 2
o Seven-up number 3
o Orange Crush number 4.
 INTERVAL LEVEL
• similar to the ordinal level, with the additional property that
meaningful amounts of differences between data values can be
determined
• There is no natural zero point.
 EXAMPLE OF INTERVAL LEVEL
• Temperature scale (Fahrenheit and Celsius)
• Score on test as a measure of knowledge
• Aptitude test scores
 RATIO LEVEL
• the interval level with an inherent zero starting point
• Differences and ratios are meaningful for this level of
measurement.
 EXAMPLE OF RATIO LEVEL
• Monthly income of surgeons
• Distance traveled by manufacturer’s representatives per month
• Ages of students enrolled in CC
• Weights of beef cattle fed a special diet
 GIVE THE LEVEL OF
MEASUREMENT FOR EACH OF THE
FOLLOWING
1. License plate number
2. Gender
3. First 10 students rank in a class
4. Street number
5. Score on a 50-item test in Mathematics
6. Coded response (agree, disagree)
7. Species of grass that people have in their yards
8. Person’s position in beauty contest
9. Enlisted military rank in a certain compound
10. Number of chairs in the classroom
 QUIZ

Determine the correct data type (quantitative or qualitative).

1. The number of pairs of shoes you own.
2. The type of car you drive.
3. Where you go on vacation.
4. The distance it is from your home to the nearest grocery store.
5. The number of classes you take per school year.
Classify each variable as discrete or continuous.
1. The number of people who buy a coffee from Starbucks
today.
2. The volume of water (in cubic feet) of each of the Great
Lakes.
3. The number of drones Amazon.com wants to have delivering
orders by 2020.
4. The amount of time it takes to answer this question.
5. The number of nuclear power plants in the world.
What type of measure scale is being used? Nominal, Ordinal,
Interval or Ratio.
1. High school men soccer players classified by their athletic
ability: Superior, Average, Above average.
2. Baking temperatures for various main dishes: 350, 400, 325,
250, 300
3. The colors of crayons in a 24-crayon box.
4. Social security numbers.
5. Incomes measured in dollars