Variables in Statistics

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2 min read

Many of the readers who are coders already know about what I'm talking about but I have to write it anyway.

Variable: A variable is a property that can take up any value.

example: height = 170cm, weight = 66kg

Variables can take up any values like = {182, 178, 168, 166, 160} etc.

In variables, there are also 2 types of variables

  • Qualitative Variables

  • Quantitative Variables

First, let's talk about qualitative variables

Qualitative Variables

Qualitative Variables are also known as Categorical Variables. let's take an example to understand it further.

Genders, Genders mainly consist of 2 types which are Male and Female. So based on some characteristics of Males and Females, we can derive categorical values.

let's take another eg of IQ (This is just for an eg)

0 - 10
10 - 50
50 - 100
I can say that 0 - 10 is low IQ, 10 -50 is medium IQ and 50 - 100 is good IQ again this is only for eg purpose

Another eg we can take is of Blood Group. Now blood groups also have a few categories such as A+, B+, O+, O-, AB- etc.

going further let's take a look at what Quantitative Variables are

Quantitative Variables

Quantitative Variables can be measured numerically. We can perform operations such as Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division on Quantitative Variables.

eg: Age, Weight and Height.

Quantitative Variables can be further divided into 2 types which are Discrete and Continuous

Discrete Variables

Discrete Variables consist of the whole number.

An eg of Discrete variables is the number of bank accounts a person has. A person can have 2 accounts and 3 accounts but he cannot have 2.5 accounts and 3.1 accounts. In this manner, we can say that discrete variables can be counted as a whole number.

Continuous Variables

Continuous variables consist of floating values

eg continuous variables are Height. Now height can be measured as 170.5cm, 169.3cm, 166cm

another eg is weight. Weight can also be counted as 75.4kg, 70kg, 76.3kg etc.

In this way, we can say that continuous variables can be counted as floating values.

Let's take some more eg to clear it up further

Gender - Categorical / Discrete
Maritial Status - Categorical / Discrete
River Length - Continuous
Population of the state - Discrete / Categorical
Song length - Continuous
Blood Pressure - Continuous
Pincode - Discrete

These are some of the examples of Variables.

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