Before you compute anything, you have to know what kind of values you are holding. Here are 120 households and eight things we recorded about each one. Some columns are labels; some are amounts; and among the amounts, some can only land on whole steps while others flow through every value in between. Pick a column, then turn up the measuring precision and watch which ones keep splitting.
Pick a column to plot
Each dot is one household. Dots with the same value stack up.
What the data itself says
Households120
Distinct values—
Smallest gap—
Summary—
Choose a column on the right and these fill in from the actual 120 rows.
Which values are possible at all?
The 120-household surveypick one of the eight columns
The eight columns we recorded
whole units
1 · Do the values name a group, or measure an amount?
2 · If it is an amount, does it step or does it flow?
Look at the dot plot, drag the precision slider, then classify the column with the two rows above.
Two questions, in order. (1) Would averaging these values mean anything? If they are names, no — qualitative. If they are amounts, yes — quantitative. (2) Then: can you list the possible values one at a time with gaps between them (discrete), or does the variable pass through every value in an interval (continuous)?