Question

Case 12.1

Determine what variables are categorical (either nominal or ordinal scales), perform the appropriate descriptive analysis, and interpret it.

Answer 1

A categorical variable is a type of variable that has two or more categories but no order. It is also called nominal variable. Gender, religion, college major,brands of a product, disability or skin colour are all categories. When variables assigned to these categories are known as categorical variables. Categorical variables differ from person to person. Gender and religion are categories whereas male, female are categorical variables of category gender, similarly hindu, muslim, christian,jain etc. are categorical variables of category religion.

Categorical variables have no orders, it means they are not ordered from highest to lowest or vice-versa. There is no specific order to male and female, if there is any order then those variables are called ordinal variables.

Ordinal variables are those variables that have a specific order, for exa, temperature is a variable which has categories like low, medium and high. Although these are categories, there is a specific order. So temperature is an ordinal variable. Similarly, educational experience is a variable with different categories which are ordered from lowest to highest or highest to lowest as per the individual requirement. For exa, educational experience with categories like elementary, higher secondary, graduate or masters' degree.