What is a quantity or a characteristic that has two or more mutually exclusive values or properties?

A variable is any characteristics, number, or quantity that can be measured or counted. A variable may also be called a data item. Age, sex, business income and expenses, country of birth, capital expenditure, class grades, eye colour and vehicle type are examples of variables. It is called a variable because the value may vary between data units in a population, and may change in value over time. For example; 'income' is a variable that can vary between data units in a population (i.e. the people or businesses being studied may not have the same incomes) and can also vary over time for each data unit (i.e. income can go up or down).


What are the types of variables?

There are different ways variables can be described according to the ways they can be studied, measured, and presented.

Numeric variables have values that describe a measurable quantity as a number, like 'how many' or 'how much'.

Therefore numeric variables are quantitative variables.Numeric variables may be further described as either continuous or discrete:
  • A continuous variable is a numeric variable. Observations can take any value between a certain set of real numbers. The value given to an observation for a continuous variable can include values as small as the instrument of measurement allows. Examples of continuous variables include height, time, age, and temperature.
  • A discrete variable is a numeric variable. Observations can take a value based on a count from a set of distinct whole values. A discrete variable cannot take the value of a fraction between one value and the next closest value. Examples of discrete variables include the number of registered cars, number of business locations, and number of children in a family, all of of which measured as whole units (i.e. 1, 2, 3 cars).

The data collected for a numeric variable are quantitative data.

Categorical variables have values that describe a 'quality' or 'characteristic' of a data unit, like 'what type' or 'which category'.

Categorical variables fall into mutually exclusive (in one category or in another) and exhaustive (include all possible options) categories. Therefore, categorical variables are qualitative variables and tend to be represented by a non-numeric value.Categorical variables may be further described as ordinal or nominal:
  • An ordinal variable is a categorical variable. Observations can take a value that can be logically ordered or ranked. The categories associated with ordinal variables can be ranked higher or lower than another, but do not necessarily establish a numeric difference between each category. Examples of ordinal categorical variables include academic grades (i.e. A, B, C), clothing size (i.e. small, medium, large, extra large) and attitudes (i.e. strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree).
  • A nominal variable is a categorical variable. Observations can take a value that is not able to be organised in a logical sequence. Examples of nominal categorical variables include sex, business type, eye colour, religion and brand.

The data collected for a categorical variable are qualitative data.

Types of variables flowchart:

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Variable is a quantity or a characteristic that has or more mutually exclusive values or properties of objects or people that can be classified, measured or labeled in different ways.

Types of Variables

  1. Discrete Variable – only a finite or potentially countable set of values.
  2. Continuous Variable – an infinite set of values between any two levels of the variables.  They are result of measurement.
  3. Independent Variable – a stimulus variable which is chosen by the researcher to determine its relationship to an observed phenomena.
  4. Dependent Variable – a response variable which is observed and measured to determine the effect of the independent variable.
  5. Moderate Variable – a secondary or special type of independent variable chosen by the researcher to ascertain if it alters or modifies.
  6. Control Variable – a variable controlled by the research in which the effects can be neutralized by removing the variable.
  7. Intervening Variable – a variable which interferes with the independent and dependent variables, but its effects can either strengthen or weaken the independent and dependent variables.

Characteristics of Variable

1.    Capable of assuming several values representing a certain category.
2.    Values that may arise from counting and or from measurement.
3.    Raw data or figures gathered by a research for statistical purposes.
4.    Predicted values of one variable on the basis of another
5.    Observable characteristic of a person or objects being studied.

What do you call to characteristics that has two or more mutually exclusive values or properties?

A nominal variable with two mutually exclusive categories is sometimes called a dichotomous variable.

What is the two characteristics of variable?

A variable is a characteristic that can be measured and that can assume different values. Height, age, income, province or country of birth, grades obtained at school and type of housing are all examples of variables. Variables may be classified into two main categories: categorical and numeric.

What is a variable characteristic?

"A variable is a characteristic of a statistical unit being observed that may assume more than one of a set of values to which a numerical measure or a category from a classification can be assigned."

What are the characteristics of independent variable?

An independent variable is the variable you manipulate, control, or vary in an experimental study to explore its effects. It's called “independent” because it's not influenced by any other variables in the study. Independent variables are also called: Explanatory variables (they explain an event or outcome)