lesson
Updated 6 days ago · 2 views
Imagine asking your friends three questions: "What is your favorite animal?", "How many pets do you have?", and "How tall are you?"
Each answer gives us a different kind of clue, called data, which is just a fancy word for collected information.
Let us look at the first question to see what makes its answers special.
Word Groups: Categorical Data
When your answers are words, labels, or groups—like "cat", "dog", or "goldfish"—you are collecting categorical data.
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You cannot add "cat" plus "dog" to get a math answer, so we sort them into groups to see which one is the most popular.
What happens when your answer is a number you can count on your fingers?
Counting in Jumps: Discrete Data
When you count whole objects one by one—like 1 toy, 2 toys, or 3 toys—you have discrete data.
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Discrete numbers jump in whole steps because you cannot have half of a backpack or 2.3 pencils.
What if a number can be sliced into tiny little fractions in between?