What is categorical data?

Data that consist of only small number of values, each corresponding to a specific category value or label. Ask yourself whether you can state out loud all the possible values of your data without taking a breath. If you can, you have a pretty good indication that your data are categorical. In a recently published study of breast feeding in pre-term infants, there are a variety of categorical variables:

• Breast feeding status (exclusive, partial, and none);

• whether the mother was employed (yes, no); and

• the mother's marital status (single, married, divorced, widowed).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. It was written by Steve Simon on 2002-10-11, edited by Steve Simon, and was last modified on 2010-04-01. This page needs major revisions. Category: Definitions.