Data Types (Psychology)

There are many form forms data can take:

Quantitative data

This is data which is measured and is numeric such as age (years).

Qualitative data

This is data which is observed such as colour, non numeric and often hard to measure.

Continuous

Quantitative data which can take any decimal value (e.g. weight, length, time). There will be no gaps between any of the possible numerical values.

Discrete

Quantitative data that can take a fixed number of values only. For example, shoe size.

Categorical

Qualitative data, produced when you create categories of different characteristics of your object of study (e.g. hair or eye colour). You then count the number of observations in each category ($5$ blonde, $7$ brunette,…).

Test Yourself

Try our Numbas tests on data types.