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Discrete Data Is A Count That Involves Integers. Only A Limited Number of

Discrete data can only take on countable integer values and cannot be subdivided. Examples include the number of children in a school or number of languages spoken. Discrete data is characterized by having a limited set of possible values that cannot be measured and are typically represented in graphs using bars. Discrete data can be nominal, where values are categorical labels with no inherent order, or ordinal, where values have a rank order. Continuous data can be measured precisely on a scale and can have any value within a range, like height in inches. It is characterized by having an infinite set of possible values within an interval and is typically represented using histograms or line graphs.

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121 views3 pages

Discrete Data Is A Count That Involves Integers. Only A Limited Number of

Discrete data can only take on countable integer values and cannot be subdivided. Examples include the number of children in a school or number of languages spoken. Discrete data is characterized by having a limited set of possible values that cannot be measured and are typically represented in graphs using bars. Discrete data can be nominal, where values are categorical labels with no inherent order, or ordinal, where values have a rank order. Continuous data can be measured precisely on a scale and can have any value within a range, like height in inches. It is characterized by having an infinite set of possible values within an interval and is typically represented using histograms or line graphs.

Uploaded by

Alok Thakur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Discrete data is a count that involves integers.

Only a limited number of


values is possible. The discrete values cannot be subdivided into parts. For
example, the number of children in a school is discrete data. You can count
whole individuals. You can’t count 1.5 kids.
So, discrete data can take only certain values. The data variables cannot be
divided into smaller parts.
Discrete data key characteristics:

 You can count the data. It is usually units counted in whole numbers.
 The values cannot be divided into smaller pieces and add additional
meaning.
 You cannot measure the data. By nature, discrete data cannot be
measured at all. For example, you can measure your weight with the
help of a scale. So, your weight is not a discrete data.
 It has a limited number of possible values e.g. days of the month.
 Discrete data is graphically displayed by a bar graph.
Discrete data may be also ordinal or nominal data
When the values of the discrete data fit into one of many categories and there
is an order or rank to the values, we have ordinal discrete data. For example,
the first, second and third person in a competition.

Discrete data may be also nominal where the data fit into one or more
categories where there is no any order between the values. For example, the
eye color can fall in one of these categories: blue, green, brown.

Examples of discrete data:

 The number of students in a class.


 The number of workers in a company.
 The number of parts damaged during transportation.
 Shoe sizes.
 Number of languages an individual speaks.
 The number of home runs in a baseball game.
 The number of test questions you answered correctly.
 Instruments in a shelf.
 The number of siblings a randomly selected individual has.
Continuous data is information that could be meaningfully divided into finer
levels. It can be measured on a scale or continuum and can have almost any
numeric value. For example, you can measure your height at very precise
scales — meters, centimeters, millimeters and etc.
The continuous variables can take any value between two numbers. For
example, between 50 and 72 inches, there are literally millions of possible
heights: 52.04762 inches, 69.948376 inches and etc.

A good common rule for defining if a data is continuous or discrete is that if


the point of measurement can be reduced in half and still make sense, the data
is continuous.

We can display continuous data by histograms. Line graphs are also very
helpful for displaying trends in continuous data.
Continuous data key characteristics:

 In general, continuous variables are not counted.


 The values can be subdivided into smaller and smaller pieces and
they have additional meaning.
 The continuous data is measurable.
 It has an infinite number of possible values within an interval.
 Continuous data is graphically displayed by histograms.

In comparison to discrete data, continuous data give a much better sense of


the variation that is present.

In addition, continuous data can take place in many different kinds of


hypothesis checks. For example, to evaluate the accuracy of the weight
printed on the product box.

Examples of continuous data:

 The amount of time required to complete a project.


 The height of children.
 The amount of time it takes to sell shoes.
 The amount of rain, in inches, that falls in a storm.
 The square footage of a two-bedroom house.
 The weight of a truck.
 The speed of cars.
 Time to wake up.

When it comes to sampling methods, the measurement tool could be a


restricting factor for continuous data. For example, if I say that my height is
65 inches, my height is not exactly 65 inches. That’s just what my scale
shows me. In fact, my height might be 65.76597 inches.

This should be taken into consideration if you perform a market research and
be careful about different scales, measurement, and data collecting tools.

Nominal scales are used for labeling variables, without any quantitative value.  “Nominal” scales
could simply be called “labels.”  Here are some examples, below.  Notice that all of these scales are
mutually exclusive (no overlap) and none of them have any numerical significance.  A good way to
remember all of this is that “nominal” sounds a lot like “name” and nominal scales are kind of like
“names” or labels.

a sub-type of nominal scale with only two categories (e.g. male/female) is called “dichotomous.” 

Examples of Nominal Variable

 Personal Biodata: The variables included in a personal biodata is a


nominal variable. This includes the name, date of birth, gender, etc. E.g 
 Full Name _____
 Gender
 Email address_____
 Customer Feedback: Organizations use this to get feedback about their
product or service from customers. 

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