Question

A february 2007 gallup poll question asked, "in politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a republican, a democrat, or an independent?" the possible responses were "democrat", "republican", "independent", "other", and "no response". what kind of variable is the response?

Answer 1

The kind of variable in the responses “Democrat”, “Republican”, “Independent”, “Other”, and “No Response” is a categorical variable since the choices does not associate with any kind of unit.

Literally speaking, categorical variables are variables that fall into a specific category. Categorical variable is also known as qualitative variable.