Types of data

Question 1

What is the purpose of statistics?

Answer 1

To make sense of variability

Question 2

What are descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and data exploration techniques?

Answer 2

Descriptive stats = summarising information (midpoint and spread)
Inferential stats = confidence with which we can generalise from a sample to the entire population (infer something) (identify significant differences)
Data exploration techniques = make sense of large amounts of data

Question 3

What are the 4 scales of measurement?

Answer 3

Nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio

Question 4

What is nominal data?

Answer 4

Data is names or categories
- Is something the same as, or different to, something else?

Question 5

What is ordinal data?

Answer 5

Data can be placed in order but distance between points can vary
- Is something greater than or smaller than something else?
e.g. likert scale, place in a race

Question 6

What is interval data?

Answer 6

Order to data points, fixed distance between points and negative values
- How much is one score greater than another score?
- 0 does not mean nothing - no true zero point
e.g. temperature - cannot say that 10ᵒC is 5x as hot as 2ᵒC as there is no true zero point

Question 7

What is ratio data?

Answer 7

Order to data points, fixed distance between points but no negative values - true zero point
- How many times bigger is score A compared to score B?
e.g. height in cm - can say that one person is twice as tall as another person

Question 8

What types of data are categorical?

Answer 8

Nominal and ordinal

Question 9

What types of data are continuous?

Answer 9

Interval and ratio