Quantitative classification
Topic: Economic Data: Census, NSS, Surveys and Statistical Tools · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Organisation of Data"; Class 11, Ch 4 "Presentation of Data"
Meaning
Quantitative classification groups data by a characteristic that can be measured in numbers, such as marks, income, age, height or weight. The values are sorted into classes with class limits (lower and upper ends). Each class has a width, called the class interval, and a count of values, called the frequency. The result is a frequency distribution. From it we can calculate averages and draw histograms and ogives.
Example
The maths marks of 100 students are grouped into classes of width 10: 0-10, 10-20 and so on up to 90-100. The class 50-60 holds 23 students, the largest group.
Don't confuse with
- Qualitative classification: this sorts data by attributes that cannot be measured, such as gender or religion. It works by presence or absence, not by numerical classes.
- Chronological classification: this sorts data by time, for example India's population census by census. The result is a time series.
Related concepts
- Raw data
- Classification
- Chronological classification
- Spatial classification
- Qualitative classification
- Attribute
- Continuous variable
- Discrete variable
- Frequency
- Frequency distribution