Are the outcomes of a dice roll an example of a discrete or a continuous variable?
1 Answer
Jan 26, 2018
Discrete; they are countable.
Explanation:
A discrete variable is one that can only take on countably many values, usually integers. Examples would be:
- A score on a math test
- How many children a family has
- The toss of a coin
- Whether someone has a disease or not
- Someone's age (rounded to the year)
A continuous variable is one that can take on infinitely many uncountable values. Examples would be:
- The time until the next bus arrives
- The maximum temperature for a day
- A person's height/weight
Because these values could have endless decimal places, we have to round them and/or group them by range. For example, a temperature is always rounded to the nearest degree (or 0.1 degree), since it doesn't usually help to use more precision than that.