Title: Continuous, categorical and dummy variables
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Introduction to Quantitative Analysis

Continuous, categorical and dummy variables

Along with nominal, ordinal, ratio and interval levels of measurement, another way of understanding differences between different types of variable which can also help us decide on the appropriate analytic approaches for such variables is to think of them as belonging to one of three categories: continuous, categorical and ‘dummy’.

Continuous variables | Measured to an infinitely small degree
Categorical variables | Distinct categories with no underlying order or meaningful numerical quality.
Dummy Variables | Indicates the presence or absence of a certain characteristic and has meaningful numerical quality.