Types of Data Science Questions

In approximate order of difficulty

• Descriptive (描寫的；記述的)
• Exploratory (勘探的；探究的)
• Inferential (推理的；推論的)
• Predictive (預言性的；預兆的)
• Causal (原因的；因果的)
• Mechanistic (機械論的)

 

Types		Goal
Descriptive	描寫的；記述的	Describe a set of data
Exploratory	勘探的；探究的	Find relationships you didn’t know about
Inferential	推理的；推論的	Use a relatively small sample of data to say something about a bigger population
Predictive	預言性的；預兆的	To use the data on some objects to predict values for another object
Causal	原因的；因果的	To find out what happens to one variable when you make another variable change
Mechanistic	機械論的	Understand the exact changes in variables that lead to changes in other variables for individual objects

 

Descriptive (描寫的；記述的)

http://www.census.gov/2010census/

http://books.google.com/ngrams

 

Exploratory (勘探的；探究的)

http://www.sdss.org/

 

Inferential (推理的；推論的)

http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2013/01000/Effect_of_Air_Pollution_Control_on_Life_Expectancy.4.aspx

 

Predictive (預言性的；預兆的)

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

 

Causal (原因的；因果的)

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1205037?query=featured_home&

 

Mechanistic (機械論的)

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/resourcecenter/teams/pavement/pave_3pdg.pdf