CIMA BA1 Syllabus C. Informational Context Of Business - Data vs information - Notes ^{1 / 7}

Data is the raw material for data processing.

Data relate to numbers, raw facts, events and transactions which have been recorded but not yet processed into a form suitable for use.

Data on its own is meaningless.

Information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person who receives it.

Quantitative Or Qualitative

Data can be either quantitative or qualitative, as can information.

• If data can be measured, it is quantitative

  eg value of sales per day

  Quantitative information can have some errors such as:

  1) Wrong presentation format leading to overstatement or understatement of a given quantity.

  2) Using an inappropriate benchmark

  3) Selection bias

  4) Wrong sample sizes

• If it cannot be measured, then it is qualitative

  eg it reflects some characteristic, for example, the colour of a product.

Discrete and continuous data

• Discrete data

  can only take specific values

  For example, the number of products sold in a month must be a whole number.

• Continuous data can take any numerical value

  For example, the weight of a consignment of products could be measured to any degree of accuracy.