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title: "Fitting a distribution for a discrete variable"
canonical: "https://modelassist.epixanalytics.com/space/EA/26575318/Fitting%20a%20distribution%20for%20a%20discrete%20variable"
format: markdown
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This section discusses techniques for fitting a distribution to observations for a discrete variable.

 

Before proceeding we suggest that you review the section on [checking for data quality](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575305/) and [discrete data transformation](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575310/) first.

 

The methods we describe can be categorized into four groups, depending on your choice of a [parametric or non-parametric distribution](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575199/), and of a [first or second order distribution](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575199/):

 

[Fitting a discrete non-parametric first-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575319)

[Fitting a discrete non-parametric second-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575320/)

[Fitting a discrete parametric first-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575315/)

[Fitting a discrete parametric second-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575322/)

### Using a continuous distribution to approximate a discrete variable

 

It is sometimes more convenient to use a continuous distribution to model a discrete variable, usually when using a wide ranging non-parametric distribution because the variable takes many possible values and the discrete version becomes difficult to handle. Continuous parametric distributions also offer a wider range of shapes than the range of discrete parametric distributions, so you may well get a better representation of your observed pattern. Excel's [ROUND](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575570/)(*Distribution*,0) function can be used to get the continuous distribution to return discrete values:

 

[Fitting a continuous non-parametric first-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575313/)

[Fitting a continuous non-parametric second-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575314/)

[Fitting a continuous parametric first-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575315/)

[Fitting a continuous parametric second-order distribution to data](https://epixanalytics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EA/pages/26575316/)

  


 

 

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