Thread: Quantitative or qualitative independant variable question

I'm performing a linear regression analysis of the form y = mx + c where y is the amount of water a house uses and x is the number of occupants (in the range of 1 to 6).

My question is: is the occupancy rate counted as quantitative or qualitative? Clearly I can't have 2.5 people but as each value relates numerically to others maybe this means it is quantitative and not categorical?

Can I do a 'normal' regression analysis with my data, e.g. using Excel to create a trendline and associated formula. Would the corresponding R^2 value mean anything? Would it actually explain the % variation in my model?

Thanks in advance
-Rob

Originally Posted by TheRobster

I'm performing a linear regression analysis of the form y = mx + c where y is the amount of water a house uses and x is the number of occupants (in the range of 1 to 6).

My question is: is the occupancy rate counted as quantitative or qualitative? Clearly I can't have 2.5 people but as each value relates numerically to others maybe this means it is quantitative and not categorical?

Can I do a 'normal' regression analysis with my data, e.g. using Excel to create a trendline and associated formula. Would the corresponding R^2 value mean anything? Would it actually explain the % variation in my model?

Thanks in advance
-Rob

Since the mean of categorical data is meaningless ask yourself does the mean ocupancy have any meaning?

CB

Yes it does (mean occupancy rate for housing is used all the time in demographics).

Wouldn't the data actually be considered to be ordinal rather than nominal? Couldn't it therefore be ranked and then assessed? (Since there is a relationship between the occupancy rates, i.e. 2 is twice as many as 1, 3 is more than 2 etc).

Originally Posted by TheRobster

Wouldn't the data actually be considered to be ordinal rather than nominal? Couldn't it therefore be ranked and then assessed? (Since there is a relationship between the occupancy rates, i.e. 2 is twice as many as 1, 3 is more than 2 etc).

The number of occupants of a building is a numeric variable, just like a length (you can rank lengths ..)

CB