The following vocabulary will be important in this lesson:

• Data: A body of facts or information.
• Qualitative: descriptive information
• Quantitative: numerical information
• Discrete: only includes certain values (such as whole numbers)
• Continuous: includes any value (usually within a given range)

When collecting data, there are two main types of data that you can collect. Qualitative data is descriptive information. It might include information about things such as colors, favorite flavors, or emotions. Quantitative data is numerical information. It might include information about things such as height, weight, number of times you eat out, etc. 

When asking a qualitative question, you would ask a question that results in an adjective or noun. These questions generally begin with "What"

Examples of Qualitative Questions:

1. What color is your hair?
2. What is your favorite pizza topping?
3. What emotion did you feel about the teachers decision to give extra credit?

When asking a quantitative question, you would ask a question that results in a number answer. Tags like "How long, How many, or How much" would be used.

Examples of Quantitative Questions:

1. How long, in inches, is your hair?
2. How many toppings, on average, do you put on your pizza?
3. How much extra credit did you receive last quarter?

When asking quantitative questions, your answers could be discrete or continuous. Questions that require a whole number answer are discrete. Questions that could include any type of answer (decimals, fractions, etc.) would be continuous.

Discrete Question: How many toppings did you put on your pizza? 

Since answers to this question would be answers like 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. the data is discrete.

Continuous Question: How tall are you?

Since the answers could include things like 64.5 inches (not just whole numbers), the data is continuous.