What is the difference between Discrete and Continuous Variables?

Continuous variables: A variable which has an infinite number of possible values or whose values can be measured is referred to as continuous variables. For reference, a continuous variable can take values between 1 – 2 that is 1.02, 1.08. Example income, weight, age, height etc.

What is the difference between Quantitative and Qualitative Variables?

Quantitative variables: Variables which are measured on the numeric and quantitative scale are referred to as quantitative variables. Variables measured on ordinal, interval and ratio scale of measurements are quantitative variables. For example height, weight, age etc.

Qualitative variables: Variables that are not numerical but are categorical in nature are qualitative variables. Variables measured on a binary and nominal scale of measurement are qualitative variables. for example gender, eye color, religion etc.

What are the various Measurements of Scale?

Nominal  scale of measurement: This includes variables that are categorical in nature. Example Gender, location, religion and Favorite Color.

Ordinal  scale of measurement: These are the variables that can be ordered or ranked in some order of importance. Example Quality of product, Satisfactory Level is measured on the ordinal scale of measurement.

Interval  scale of measurement: Variables which have equal differences between scale values and equal quantitative meaning are measured on an interval scale of measurement. It does not have a true zero point. A true zero point means that a value of zero on the scale represents zero quantity of the construct being assessed. Example Temperature. Zero degrees Celsius doesn’t mean there is absolutely no heat present in the environment.

Ratio  scale of measurement: These variables have equal differences between scale values and equal quantitative meaning. They also have a true zero point. A true zero point means that a value of zero on the scale represents zero quantity of the construct being assessed. Example Height and Weight of a person is a measured on ratio scale of measurement. It is suitable to say that a person of height 8” is twice as tall as a person with height 4” inches and a person with weight 60 kg is twice as heavy as a person with weight 30 kg.

Frequency

1. Frequency Distribution

Frequency is a number of times a particular value occurs. By counting frequencies, frequency distribution can be constructed. A frequency distribution consists of class interval and corresponding frequencies. In excel best way to construct frequency distribution is using Pivot table.

2. 2k Rule

According to 2k rule, 2k >= n; where k is the number of classes and n is the number of data points.

3. Relative Frequency

Relative frequency is the percentage of observations on a particular class interval. 

3. Cumulative Relative Frequency

Cumulative frequency is defined as the sum of all relative frequencies preceding the relative frequency of particular class interval.

Percentile

The 99 values which divide data (arranged in ascending order) into 100 equal parts are known as percentiles.

For un-grouped data percentiles can be calculated using following formula:

For grouped data percentiles can be calculated using following formula:

Quartiles

The 3 values which divide data (arranged in ascending order) into four equal parts are known as quartiles. They are named as first (lower quartile), second (median) and third (upper quartile) quartiles which are denoted by Q1, Q2 and Q3 respectively.

For un-grouped data quartiles can be calculated using following formula:

For grouped data quartiles can be calculated using following formula:

Stem and Leaf Plot

The stem is used to group the scores and each leaf indicates the individual scores within each group. Example:

Histogram

The histogram is a graphical display of frequency distribution of data. The easiest method for construction if the histogram is using Pivot tables in Excel. Histogram tells me about the shape of the distribution.

Histogram can also be constructed with help of 2k Rule

The shape of the Histogram can be Symmetric (Normal), Positively skewed, negatively skewed and Bimodal. 

Symmetric (Normal): If it is bell-shaped I can say data is normally distributed. For a normal distribution, mean is the best measure of central tendency.

Positively skewed: If histogram has a tail toward the right, it is said to be skewed to the right. A positively skewed data implies that there are very few observations with high values. Here, mean is greater than median which is greater than the mode. For a skewed data, the median is the best measure of central tendency.

Negatively skewed: If histogram has a tail toward the left, it is said to be skewed to the left. A negatively skewed data implies that there are very few observations with low values. Mean is less than median which is less than the mode. For a skewed data, the median is the best measure of central tendency.

Bimodal: Here 2 modes can be observed. 

Box Plot

Box-plot indicates if there are any outliers in the dataset. Any point outside the box is considered as an outliers. The lower line of the box is 1st Quartile, the middle line is the median and upper line is 3rd Quartile. Box Plot is also a measure of Symmetry. 

Box Plot is also a measure of Symmetry. It can tell us about the shape of underlying distribution. 

Normal Distribution: If the line is close to the center of the box and the whisker lengths are the same then the sample is from symmetric (Normal) population. 

Positively skewed: If the top whisker is much longer than the bottom whisker and the line is gravitating towards the bottom of the box, then the sample is from a population which is skewed to the right.Here, mean is greater than median which is greater than the mode. For a skewed data, the median is the best measure of central tendency.

Negatively skewed: If the bottom whisker is much longer than the top whisker and the line is rising to the top of the box, then the sample is from the population which is skewed to the left. Here, mean is less than median which is less than the mode. Here, mean is less than median which is less than the mode. For a skewed data, the median is the best measure of central tendency.

PP Plot and QQ Plot

PP plot indicates whether data follows a normal distribution. If its graph is S-shaped, data is normally distributed. Else if data is not normally distributed. It plots the corresponding areas under the curve (cumulative distribution function). 

QQ plot indicates whether data is skewed to right or left. Here the actual values of X are plotted against the theoretical values of X under the normal distribution. The use of Q–Q plots is to compare the distribution of a sample to a theoretical distribution, standard normal distribution.

Scatterplot

Scatterplot tells me strength and direction of the linear relationship between two variables.

Mean

Mean (also known as expectation or average) is defined as the sum of all deviations divided by the total number of observations. Mean is considered as the best measure of central tendency when data is normally distributed.

Some properties of expectation (mean) for a random variable X are:

Median

Median is defined as the middle value in a series of data when arranged in ascending order of importance. The median in a series of ordered (ascending) values is the value at which there are just as many values less than it as there are greater than it. Median is considered as the best measure of central tendency when data is skewed or has outliers.

Mode

The mode is defined as the observation which occurs a maximum number of times. The mode is the number with the highest frequency. The mode is considered as the best measure of central tendency when data is measured on the nominal scale of measurement.

With the addition of a constant value to each observation in a dataset, there is no change in the values. Hence all measures of variability are unchanged by the addition of constant value.

With the multiplication of a constant value to each observation in a data set the distance between values changes. Hence new range, interquartile range (IQR), and the standard deviation are constant multiplied by old range, interquartile range (IQR), and standard deviation respectively. And new variance is constant multiplied by old variance.

Variance

It is a measure of the spread of distribution about its mean. Variance measures the dispersion in squared units of the data. The less value of variance implies that the mean is reliable. For formula for population variance and sample variance differs in the denominator.

In statistical analysis data in form of sample and hence I use sample variance. Excel functions for population variance and sample variance is VAR.P and VAR.S respectively.

Some properties of variance for a random variable “X” with a constant “a” are:

For two random variables X and Y,

Standard Deviation

It is a measure of the spread of distribution about its mean. Standard Deviation measures the dispersion in original units of the data. The less value of Standard Deviation implies that the mean is reliable. For formula for population variance and sample Standard Deviation differs in the denominator. 

Range