What Are We

Summarizing?
Lecture 11
Sections 4.1 4.2
Tue, Sep 20, 2005

What Are We
Summarizing?

There are various types of data.

How the data are summarized
depends on the type of data.
See Data Set 1, p. 212.
How best to summarize Gender?
How best to summarize Age?
How best to summarize Blood Pressure?

Qualitative Variables

Qualitative variable A variable

whose values are not numerical, but
can be divided into categories.
The values of a qualitative variable
may or may not have a natural order.
Examples:
Gender.
Questionnaire response, from strongly
agree to strongly disagree.

Quantitative Variables

Quantitative variable A variable

whose values are numerical.
A quantitative variable may be
continuous or discrete.

Continuous Variables

Continuous variable The set of

theoretically possible values of the variable
forms a continuous set of real numbers.
Typically these are measured quantities:
length, time, area, weight, etc.
Example: The length of time a student
takes to complete a test.
Usually the noun does not have a plural
form.

Discrete Variables

Discrete variable The set of theoretically

possible values of the variable forms a set
of isolated points on the number line.
Typically this is count data; a verbal
description usually contains the phrase
the number of.
Example: The number of students who
completed the test within 40 minutes.
Usually the noun has a plural form.

Discrete vs. Continuous

Some data may be considered to be

either discrete or continuous.
Example: Time vs. Minutes.
How much time do I have for the test?
How many minutes do I have for the test?

Example: Money vs. Dollars.

How much money is in your pocket?
How many dollars are in your pocket?

In such cases, consider it to be

continuous.

Discrete vs. Continuous

Some data may be considered to be

either discrete or continuous.
Example: Time vs. Minutes.
How much time do I have for the test?
How many minutes do I have for the test?

Example: Money vs. Dollars.

How much money is in your pocket?
How many dollars are in your pocket?

In such cases, consider it to be

continuous.

Discrete vs. Continuous

The distinction is based on the nature

of the variable, not the manner in
which it is measured or recorded.
Example: Measure the time it takes
each student to finish a test, to the
nearest minute.
The possible times are 0, 1, 2, 3,
minutes.
Is that discrete or continuous?

Lets Do It!

Lets do it! 4.1, p. 216 What Type

of Variable?
Think about it, p. 217.

Parameters and
Statistics

For quantitative variables (discrete or

continuous), the most commonly used
statistic is the average of the numbers.

Average weight of the postal packages.

For qualitative variables, the most

commonly used statistic is the proportion
of values in a specific category.

Proportion of packages that are in the light

category.

Qualitative or
Quantitative?

Caution: Sometimes numbers are

used merely as labels on the
categories. That alone will not make
the data quantitative.

Qualitative or
Quantitative?

On an opinion survey:
1 = strongly disagree
2 = disagree
3 = neutral
4 = agree
5 = strongly agree

Is it legitimate to average the

responses?