What is the meaning of discrete and continuous data?
In: Mathematics
You can think of continuous data as all the possible points on a line or curve.
Discrete data are a a collection of points that are not connected to each other. Sometimes discrete data can be used to approximate continuous date. For example age, measured in years can be fit to a regression model and we consider it continuous over its range. Discrete data can also be ordinal or nominal, while continuous data cannot.
Ordinal data has order, but the interval between points is not consistent. For example, a five-point rating scale is ordinal. We know that a rating of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ is better than ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ but that one star difference may not represent the same amount of change in quality than the difference between ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and ⭐️⭐️.
Discrete data may also be nominal, I.e., unordered or categorical. Gender, color, or really any characteristic that is not numeric fits into this category.
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