Variables can be qualitative or quantitative, ordered or unordered, or discrete or continuous.
Qualitative variable – a symbol whose range consists of attributes or non-quantitative characteristics of people, objects, or events; qualitative variables are either ordered or non-ordered
Ordered qualitative variable – example: grade
Unordered qualitative variable – example: gender, race, religious preference, blood type
Quantitative variable – a symbol whose range consists of a count or a numerical measurement of a characteristic; can be discrete or continuous; quantitative variables are discrete or continuous.
A variable is discrete when the range can only be a finite number of values or an infinitive number of values that are countable.
Discrete quantitative variables – ex: # of parking tickets received; one’s score on a standardized achievement test
A variable is continuous if its ranger is uncountably infinite. Examples of continuous variables include the temperature in San Antonio, the duration of a kiss, and height. These are examples because these measurements are always approximate.
Continuous quantitative variables – ex: temperature, speed
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