Attribute
Topic: Economic Data: Census, NSS, Surveys and Statistical Tools · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Organisation of Data"; Class 11, Ch 6 "Correlation"; Class 11, Ch 8 "Use of Statistical Tools"
Meaning
An attribute is a quality that cannot be measured in numbers, such as gender, religion, literacy or marital status. Data on attributes are qualitative data. They are classified by whether the quality is present or absent, not by size. Attributes can still be counted, shown in bar diagrams and ranked. Spearman's rank correlation is used to find relationships between them.
Example
A population can be classified first into male and female. Each group can then be split into married and unmarried. Census 2011 literacy tables classify people as literate or not literate.
Don't confuse with
- Variable: this is a measurable quantity, such as income, height or marks, that takes different values. An attribute can only be present or absent, or placed in grades such as unskilled, skilled and highly skilled.
Related concepts
- Raw data
- Classification
- Chronological classification
- Spatial classification
- Qualitative classification
- Quantitative classification
- Continuous variable
- Discrete variable
- Frequency
- Frequency distribution