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Data Types

This document discusses different types of data and measurement scales. It describes two types of data: qualitative data which includes information that is not numerical, and quantitative data which is captured numerically. Quantitative data is further divided into continuous data measured on a continuous scale, and discrete data which results from counting events. There are four types of measurement scales: nominal which categorizes data, ordinal which orders data, interval which has defined intervals but no absolute zero, and ratio which has an absolute zero allowing for meaningful ratios.

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152 views

Data Types

This document discusses different types of data and measurement scales. It describes two types of data: qualitative data which includes information that is not numerical, and quantitative data which is captured numerically. Quantitative data is further divided into continuous data measured on a continuous scale, and discrete data which results from counting events. There are four types of measurement scales: nominal which categorizes data, ordinal which orders data, interval which has defined intervals but no absolute zero, and ratio which has an absolute zero allowing for meaningful ratios.

Uploaded by

gtmani123
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Data:

Data are classified into two types: Qualitative Data: Qualitative data is extremely varied in nature. It includes virtually any information that can be captured that is not numerical in nature. Examples for qualitative data are indepth interview (in the form of video, voice etc), direct observation, documents etc. Quantitative Data: Data captured in numerical form.

Type of Data (from statistical perspective):


Quantitative data (data captured in numerical form) are grouped into two types Continuous (also called variable data) Discrete (also called attribute data) Continuous data results from measurement on a continuous scale such as length, weight and temperature. These scales are called continuous because between any two values are an infinite number of other values. Discrete data result from counting the occurrence of events. Some of the examples are counting the number of valves that leaked, number of paint defects per batch of painted parts. In a nut shell, it include defects (number of non conformance in a part) and defectives (Pass/Fail, Good/Bad, Go/No-Go information)

Measurement Scales:
To avoid analysis error, it important to recognize the type of measurement scale used to collect the data. There are 4 types of measurement scales. Nominal Scales: Data classified into categories (it is more about grouping). In the nominal measurement scale, there is no relative ordering of the categories. Nominal Dichotomous - two categories e.g. male/female, pass/fail etc. Nominal with more than two categories grouping into more than two categories e.g. grouping like mild, moderate, severe or grouping with unique descriptions like eye colour, skin colour etc. Ordinal Scales: Refers to data where the relative positions in series is important (data order) (ordering observation from low to high). Ordinal variables do not tell us anything about the

absolute magnitude of the difference between 1st and 2nd or between 2nd and 3rd. Example is scores from questionnaire. Interval scales: Scale with fixed and defined interval. Have meaningful differences, but no absolute zero, so ratios are not useful. An example is temperature measured in deg F, equal interval scale but 20 deg F is not twice as warm as 10 deg F. Ratio Scales: Have meaningful differences, and an absolute zero exists. One example is length in inches, because zero length is defined, zero length is having no length and 20 inches is twice as long as 10 inches.

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