Data generating process
Appearance
The term data generating process is used in statistical and scientific literature refers to the process in the real world that “generated” the data you are interested in. Usually, scholars do not know the real data generating model. However, it is assumed that those real models have observable consequences. Those consequences are the distributions of the data in the population. Those distributors or models can be represented via mathematical functions. There are many functions of data distribution. For example, normal distribution, Bernoulli distribution, Poisson distribution, and etc.