A social worker is involved in a study about family structure. She obtains information regarding the number of children per family for a certain community from the census data. Identify the variable of interest, determine whether it is discrete or continuous and list some possible values.
Variable = number of children per family
Can a family have a half of a child?
Possible values for a family = 1, 2, 3, 4....
The variable of interest in this case is the number of children per family.
To determine whether it is discrete or continuous, we need to consider the nature of the variable. In this case, the number of children per family is a discrete variable because it can only take on whole number values. Family sizes are typically counted in integers (e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.), and it does not make sense to have fractional or decimal values in this context.
Some possible values for the number of children per family could be: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on.