POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Continuous Or Discrete Variable, Pie Chart, Frequency Distribution
Document Summary
Descriptive statistics the sample population must be at random. Values of a variable take an infinite continuum of possible real numbers in a certain interval: party vote share, percentage support to policy, economic growth rate. Campaign spending, number of days in office etc. Quantitative variables the measurement scale of a variable is numerical values (naturally expressed in numbers: annual income, vote share, age, number of siblings, growth rate etc. Values of a variable has a specific numerical distance or interval between each value: number, percentage, share, rate, amount etc. Values of a variable take unordered multiple categories: vote choice (rep or dem, religious affiliation (christian, protestant, catholic) Values of a variable take ordered multiple categories. 4 types of variables: continuous, interval, quantitative variable, discrete, interval, quantitative variables, discrete, ordinal, categorical/quantitative variables, discrete, nominal, categorical variables. The center and variability of data can be numerical. Visualization: histogram (x axis has the intervals of the values of a variable)
