Variables Types

Variables Types


Quantitative variables

  • Numerical, measurable quantities in which arithmetic operations often make sense.
  • Continuous, could take on any value within an interval, many possible values.
  • Discrete, countable value, finite number of values.

Categorical or qualitative variables

Classifies items into different groups
  • Ordinal, groups have an order or ranking
  • Nominal, groups are merely names, no ranking. 

Examples


  1. Employees were asked to report their typical daily commute time, in minutes. What type of variable would their response be considered?
  2. Employees were asked to report their typical daily mode of transportation to and from work (i.e. Car, Bike, Bus, etc.). What type of variable would their response be considered?
  3. The company wanted to know how employees perceived the work of upper management. Employees were asked to report the satisfaction of upper management using a 1 to 5 scale (with the following representations: 1 - Extremely Unsatisfied, 2 - Unsatisfied, 3 - Neutral, 4 - Satisfied, 5 - Extremely Satisfied). What type of variable would their response be considered?
  4. It was reported that Fridays were generally lighter in terms of number of meetings held. Employees were asked to report the number of scheduled meetings they attended the previous Friday. What type of variable would their response be considered?
  5. Management was playing around with the idea of having a food truck visit the office once a week and was trying to gauge how much employees would spend to help entice various food truck owners. Employees were asked to report the amount of money they believe they would spend on lunch (in $XX.XX) if a food truck came to the office once a week. What type of variable would their response be considered?

Ans

  1. Quantitative Continuous
  2. Categorical Nominal
  3. Categorical Ordinal
  4. Quantitative Discrete
  5. Quantitative Continuous

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