14th February 2024

Types of data

Summary

Data collected from a population or sample can either be quantitative or qualitative.

Quantitative data 

This refers to data that can be measured and recorded using numbers. Examples of quantitative characteristics include age, BMI, height, and weight. Quantitative variables can be discrete or continuous. Examples of discrete quantitative data are grouped data ranges, e.g. age groups.

Qualitative data 

This refers to data that describes an attribute. Qualitative data are also called categorical data. Examples of qualitative data include gender, histological staging, and stages of acute kidney injury. Qualitative data is subdivided into nominal and ordinal data. Nominal data are categories with no order, gender being an example. Ordinal data are categories with an order inherent to the data. Examples include histological staging and stages of acute kidney injury.

We need to distinguish what type of data we are collecting as it determines how it will likely be distributed and which statistical methods we can use to analyse it.

References

Tanya Hoskin. (n.d.). Data Types. Data Types. Retrieved June 10 2022, from https://www.mayo.edu/research/documents/data-types/doc-20408956