What is Data?
Data is defined as the collection of numbers, characters, images, and others
that can arranged in some manner to form meaningful information. In
statistics, the data is mainly the collection of numbers that is first studied then
analyzed and presented in some way that we can get some meaningful insight
from that data.
For example, 12, 19, 17, and 15 this is data.
What are Types of Data?
The data in statistics is classified into four categories:
Nominal data
Ordinal data
Discrete data
Continuous data
Data Types:
In statistics, there are four main types of data: nominal, ordinal, interval, and
ratio. These types of data are used to describe the nature of the data being
collected or analyzed, and they help determine the appropriate statistical tests
to use. In this essay, we will explore each type of data in detail, providing
examples along the way.
Qualitative Data (Categorical Data)
As the name suggest Qualitative Data tells the features of the data in the
statistics. Qualitative Data is also called Categorical Data and it categorizes the
data into various categories. Qualitative data includes data such as gender of
people, their family name and others in sample of population data.
Qualitative data is further categorized into two categories that includes,
Nominal Data
Ordinal Data
Nominal Data
Nominal data is a type of data that consists of categories or names that
cannot be ordered or ranked.
Nominal data is often used to categorize observations into groups, and
the groups are not comparable.
In other words, nominal data has no inherent order or ranking.
Examples of nominal data include gender (Male or female), race (White,
Black, Asian), religion (Hinuduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism), and
blood type (A, B, AB, O).
Nominal data can be represented using frequency tables and bar charts,
which display the number or proportion of observations in each
category.
For example, a frequency table for gender might show the number of
males and females in a sample of people.
Nominal data is analyzed using non-parametric tests, which do not make
any assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data. Common
non-parametric tests for nominal data include Chi-Squared Tests and
Fisher’s Exact Tests. These tests are used to compare the frequency or
proportion of observations in different categories.
Ordinal Data:
Ordinal data is a type of data that consists of categories that can be ordered
or ranked. However, the distance between categories is not necessarily
equal.
Ordinal data is often used to measure subjective attributes or opinions,
where there is a natural order to the responses. Examples of ordinal data
include education level (Elementary, Middle, High School, College), job
position (Manager, Supervisor, Employee), etc.
Ordinal data can be represented using bar charts, line charts. These
displays show the order or ranking of the categories, but they do not imply
that the distances between categories are equal.
Ordinal data is analyzed using non-parametric tests, which make no
assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data. Common non-
parametric tests for ordinal data include the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test
and Mann-Whitney U test.
Quantitative Data (Numerical Data)
Quantitavive Data is the type of the data that represents the numerical value of
the data. They are also called the Numerical Data. This data type is used to
represent the height, weight, length and other things of the data. Quantitative
data is further classified into two categories that are,
Discrete Data
Continuous Data
Discrete Data
Discrite data type is a type of data in statistics that only uses Discrete Value or
Single Values. These data types have values that can be easily counted as
whole numbers. The example of the discreate data types are,
Height of Students in a class
Marks of the students in a class test
Weight of different members of a family, etc.
Continuous Data
Continuous data is the type of the quantitative data that represent the data in a
continuous range. The variable in the data set can have any value between the
range of the data set. Examples of the continuous data types are:--
Temperature Range
Salary range of Workers in a Factory, etc.
Difference between Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Quantitaive and Qualitative data has huge differences and the basic differences
between them are studied in the table added below,
Quantitative data Qualitative data
Data is not depicted in numerical
Data is depicted in numerical terms.
terms.
Can be shown in numbers and
Could be about the behavioral
variables like ratio, percentage, and
attributes of a person, or thing.
more.
Examples: loud behavior, fair
Example: 100%, 1:3, 123
skin, soft quality, and more.
