topic Re: is a count variable continuous or ordinal? in Discussions

is a count variable continuous or ordinal?

mraha — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 22:08:06 GMT

Friends:

I have a vaiable that gets values of 0,1,2,3,4. this variable counts number of cars in a zone for example when we have 3 cars it gets the value of 3.

my question is: what is the appropriate type for this variable? should I go with continuous or change it to nominal?

thanks

Re: is a count variable continuous or ordinal?

cwillden — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 23:21:14 GMT

Is there a physical constraint that you can't have more than 4 cars in a zone? If it's really just the 0 through 4, I would treat it as ordinal. You could probably consider treating that as effectively continuous once you have at least 7 or so unique values (based on my experience). Even that is pretty iffy and probably depends on the application.

Re: is a count variable continuous or ordinal?

Gabriel — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 13:54:36 GMT

Good day @cwillden ,

If I have growth measurements taken at 5 different dates across the life cycle of my crop, would you consider this ordinal or continuous? Why did you say at least 7 in your previous response?

Re: is a count variable continuous or ordinal?

statman — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:53:44 GMT

What are you trying to do? Is this a factor in an experiment (are you manipulating it)? Is this an observational study? Are you interested in understanding potential correlation with something else? Or causal relationships? What are the hypotheses associated with "number of cars"? Is it about density, mass, traffic, etc.?