Qualitative variable

Qualitative variable

·         This data describes the quality of something in a non-numerical format.

·         Counts can be applied to qualitative data, but you cannot order or measure this type of variable. Examples are gender, marital status, geographical region of an organization, job title….

·         Qualitative data is usually treated as Categorical variable.

With categorical data, the observations can be sorted according into non-overlapping categories or by characteristics. For example, shirts can be sorted according to color; the characteristic 'color' can have non-overlapping categories: white, black, red, etc.  People can be sorted by gender with categories male and female. Categories should be chosen carefully since a bad choice can prejudice the outcome. Every value of a data set should belong to one and only one category.

·         Analyze qualitative data  using:

1      Frequency tables

2      Modes - most frequently occurring

         3      Graphs:  Bar Charts and Pie Charts