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In statistics, a case is an individual unit of data collected from a population, which may include demographic information, variables, and events. Cases are the fundamental building blocks of data that are used to analyze data and make conclusions from it. Cases can be individuals, households, businesses, or any other type of unit that is being studied. Cases are often represented as rows in a dataset.
In statistics, cases simply refer to the individuals in a dataset.
In most datasets, we have cases (the individuals) and variables (the attributes for the individuals).
For example, the following dataset contains 10 cases and 3 variables that we measure for each case:
Notice that each case has multiple variables or “attributes.”
For example, each player has a value for points, assists, and rebounds.
Note that cases are also sometimes called experimental units. These terms are used interchangeably.
Check out the following examples to gain an even better understanding of cases.
Example 1: Education
The following dataset contains 10 cases and 2 variables:
The cases are the individual students and the variables are time studied and exam score.
Example 2: Business
The following dataset contains 6 cases and 3 variables:
The cases are the individual stores and the variables are total sales, total customers, and total refunds.
Example 3: Biology
The cases are the individual plants and the variables are height, width, and age.
The following tutorials provide additional information on other terms commonly used in statistics: