Data Sets and Types

Question 1

data set

Answer 1

an organized collection of data about a specific topic

Question 2

case

Answer 2

an individual or thing about which data is collected

Question 3

variable

Answer 3

any specific type of data collected about a set of cases

Question 4

dependent variable

Answer 4

The value of a dependent variable depends on the values of one or more other variables in the data set.

Question 5

independent variable

Answer 5

not dependent.

Question 6

data point

Answer 6

gives the value of a specific variable in a specific case

Question 7

record

Answer 7

a list of the data points for one case

Question 8

Qualitative data

Answer 8

any type of data that doesn’t use numbers to stand for a quantity

Question 9

Nominal data

Answer 9

any type of qualitative data that’s not ordered in any relevant way. The statistical measures of mean, median, and range don’t apply to nominal data because those measures need an ordering that nominal data lacks. But even in a set of nominal data, some values may appear more often than others. So, the statistical measure of mode does apply to nominal data because the mode is simply the value that appears most often.

Question 10

Ordinal data

Answer 10

qualitative data ordered in a way that matters in the data set

Question 11

Binary data

Answer 11

takes only two values, like “true” and “false.”

Question 12

Partly ordered data

Answer 12

has an order among some cases but not among others. The statistical measure of median does not apply to a set of partly ordered values, though it might apply to a subset whose values are all fully ordered.

Question 13

Quantitative data

Answer 13

data about quantities measured in numbers

Question 14

Quantitative data is continuous

Answer 14

if it measures something that can be infinitely divided

Question 15

discrete

Answer 15

Quantitative data that isn’t continuous

Question 16

Interval data

Answer 16

uses a measurement scale whose number zero doesn’t stand for a complete absence of the factor measured. So, for interval data, a measurement above zero doesn’t show how much greater than nothing the measured quantity is. Because of this, the ratio of two measurements in interval data isn’t the ratio of the two measured quantities.

Question 17

Ratio data

Answer 17

uses a measurement scale whose number zero stands for the absence of the measured factor. In ratio data, as in interval data, the difference between two measurements stands for the actual difference between the measured amounts. However, in ratio data, unlike interval data, the ratio of two measurements also stands for the actual ratio of the measured amounts.

Question 18

Logarithmic data

Answer 18

use a measurement scale whose higher values stand for amounts exponentially farther apart. For logarithmic data, as for ratio data, the number zero stands for a complete absence. But in logarithmic data, the higher two measurements a certain number of units apart are, the greater the real difference between the measured amounts is.