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Could someone please clarify the difference between these seemingly interchangeable groups? (quantitative, qualitative) vs (discrete, continuous).

Obviously they are not, but I cannot seem to pinpoint the reason why they are different inside my head. I am only a freshman college student so forgive my ignorance.

It would seem that discrete is kind of similar to qualitative, where as continuous is kind of similar to quantitative. Are they basically the same, then?

Are (quantitative, qualitative) and (discrete, continuous) just synonyms for each other or is (discrete, continuous) considered a subset of (quantitative)?

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    $\begingroup$ Not synonyms. A common example of a discrete variable is anything counted and anything counted is quantitative in my book. But think of it in terms of what is in cells in a dataset: "sheep" or "cow" is qualitative, but 42 for "number of sheep" is quantitative. Similarly, categorical data analysis starts with data on categories, but the art is to translate as quickly as possible into analysis of counts, probabilities, etc., etc. $\endgroup$
    – Nick Cox
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 9:40
  • $\begingroup$ @NickCox So discrete, continuous variables are terms that usually fall into the category of quantitative variables (as opposed to categorical)? Am I correct? $\endgroup$
    – AlanSTACK
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 10:39
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    $\begingroup$ I couldn't be confident on usually without surveying all texts and teaching! I think there is a a lot of bad advice out there on data types. The best way to disambiguate in my experience is to give examples. What's your purpose downstream of this? $\endgroup$
    – Nick Cox
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 10:46
  • $\begingroup$ @NickCox nothing. Its my hobby/obsession to read modern textbooks and be "up to date" with all current scientific fields. Just explain to me as you would in an introductory stats course in college. Im not looking for hard-core analysis like proofs. But still a "majority case this works" definition/difference between them $\endgroup$
    – AlanSTACK
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 22:32
  • $\begingroup$ Another dup: stats.stackexchange.com/questions/364210/… $\endgroup$
    – kjetil b halvorsen ♦
    Commented Dec 11, 2018 at 13:54

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