¶ … Business -Discrete and continuous variables
Provide examples of both discrete and continuous variables relevant to your life. Thought: is it possible to make continuous variables discrete? Discrete variables continuous? Under what circumstances?
An example of a discrete variable would be the number of students on a school baseball team. The team is measured in terms of whole numbers (integers) and the number of possible members of the team is not infinite. Only a finite number of team members are required to fulfill the various positions, including positions such as assistant coach, statistician, and manager as well as the positions on the field. There are also no 'negative' numbers of teammates, or .5 members of the team. There is a meaningful 'zero' of team members (no one could sign up for the team one year, in theory) so the level of measurement is ratio (Trochim 2006).
The duration of time the game could last is continuous -- it could be measured in decimal or second increments, and the game could theoretically be cancelled (zero minutes) or go into overtime. The level of measurement is also a 'ratio' because it could be zero, has a value beyond merely naming the number of minutes (ordinal) and the number is not valued based upon its rank or incremental relationship to other numbers -- like ordinal and interval levels, respectively).
Continuous values can be made discrete if certain limits are imposed upon them: for example, when measuring the weight of an athlete for a weight-dependant competition, the tournament might say that all wrestlers' weights will be rounded up or down to the nearest whole number. Discrete values can be made continuous if, for example, certain individuals are measured as 'half-members:' in a school where vocational students attend academic classes for half of the day, and then leave the school to go to a trade school off-premises, for the purposes of funding, these students might be counted as.5 or half-day students.
Works Cited
Trochim, William. (2006). Levels of measurement. Social research methods. Retrieved January 2, 2009 at http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/measlevl.php
